Although this is oftentimes an elderly parent dealing with the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease or other form of dementia there can be a wide variety of reasons, both expected and unexpected, that can occur at any time. Although the best method to deal with these potential, unexpected issues is via preventative measures such as a Personal Directive or Enduring Power of Attorney. Sometimes, however, that is simply not possible. The staff and lawyers at our office have the knowledge and skill to help a potential caregiver in applying for and obtaining an order for supported decision-making, co-decision-making, guardianship or trusteeship or other relevant protection measures.
Under the law in Alberta, the Court does whatever it can to ensure that each individual can maintain as much authority for themselves as is possible. As such, we have a wide variety of categories of orders for dependant individuals.
An Order of this kind deals with a person’s financial abilities. This can be general to all matters or specific.
A Guardianship Order allows an individual to make important life decisions about another person. This order can be very restrictive.
A Co-decision-making Order would require another individual to be involved when making decisions about oneself. This can prevent the vulnerable individual from making a mistake that could have a negative impact on them. The terms and conditions of this type of order can be very specific.
A supported decision-maker is someone who is allowed to assist the represented adult to communicate their decisions, to make decisions, to access and collect information on their behalf to make those decisions. Courts of Alberta are hesitant to remove someone’s legal authority and, as such, these types of applications are often very slow and require a significant amount of information. That being said, sometimes emergency situations do occur and an emergency application can be brought; although the remaining paperwork usually needs to be completed thereafter. Our offices can assist with bringing an application, review of an application or even challenging an application.
Lawyers who focus in this practice area
Please contact our office for further details in order to assist with this process. These types of matters can be complicated and emotional as well as time-consuming to navigate in the Court system.
