More about being personal conservator

In order to be considered to serve as a personal conservator for someone be it a family member or close friend, all persons must be screened by the public conservator. This applies for San Diego mostly but other counties would have similar procedures for applying to serve as private conservator..

For San Diego you need to begin by sending in a request to the public conservator. This must occur after the temporary conservatorship has been opened. You would write a letter to the public conservator marked as Attn: Beth Olin. Within the letter you would discuss serving as conservator for your loved one. The public conservator during their 30 day investigation will perform background checks on you to determine if you are eligible to serve as conservator. They will see if you have the conservatee's best interests in mind. They want to ensure that you aid the conservatee in being compliant and provide them the best care possible. This is the case for conservators who may want to divest the conservator of their rights or conservators who are close friends and will discharge the conservatee even if it is against their best interest. The public conservator will make reasonable efforts to assess the conservatee's opinion about you serving as conservator. The public conservator will also notify all relatives of your intent to serve as conservator. This is to ensure that no one in the family has objections to your office as conservator. The list of relatives is listed in the petition unlike a separate form with limited conservatorships. In some cases the public conservator may hold a meeting with the proposed conservator so that they can sign the agreement to serve as LPS conservator and that they understand the role of conservator.
The judge likes to see that notice has been properly served or they may continue the hearing. This is very common in probate conservatorship matters. Once all relatives are served, the matter will be taken to the judge for review. Usually the judge will appoint family as conservator. You will be issued certified letters of conservatorship and orders of conservatorship. Once you have those letters you do not have to do much more except renew your conservatorship every year if needed.