Parents seeking guardianship for their adult child qualify for reduced filing fees.
If you are a parent filing for guardianship for your own adult child (over 18), you should only be required to pay a $35 filing fee rather than the full $375. This should also apply if your child is 17 but is turning 18 in the near future.
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Relying on information found online can be risky. The court’s own website states that “Guardianship of an Adult Disabled Child” qualifies for the reduced filing fee. However, the term “disabled” in this context is misleading. No formal “disability” determination is required.
The statute that sets the reduced court filing fees, Utah Code 78A-2-301(1)(b)(vii), applies to any guardianship petition where “the prospective ward is the biological or adoptive child of the petitioner.”
Incapacitated Adult v. “Disabled” in Guardianship Cases
By its very nature, guardianship is appropriate only when the person is “incapacitated” as that term is defined under Utah’s Probate Code.
“Incapacitated” means an adult’s ability to do the following is functionally impaired to the extent that the individual lacks the ability, even with appropriate technological assistance, to meet the essential requirements for financial protection or physical health, safety, or self-care:
- receive and evaluate information;
- make and communicate decisions; or
- provide for necessities such as food, shelter, clothing, health care, or safety.
Utah Code 75-1-201(25).
The conditions or circumstances leading to the need for guardianship can be either permanent or temporary. But Utah’s legal standard for guardianship is not the same as a formal determination of “disability” in other contexts.