Nebraska § 30-2645 - Petitions for orders subsequent to appointment.

§ 30-2645. Petitions for orders subsequent to appointment.

(a) Any person interested in the welfare of a person for whom a conservator has been appointed may file a petition in the appointing court for an order (1) requiring bond or security or additional bond or security, or reducing bond, (2) requiring an accounting for the administration of the trust, (3) directing distribution, (4) removing the conservator and appointing a temporary or successor conservator, or (5) granting other appropriate relief.

(b) A conservator may petition the appointing court for instructions concerning his fiduciary responsibility.

(c) Upon notice and hearing, the court may give appropriate instructions or make any appropriate order.

Designation as a beneficiary in a will, prior to the testator's death, does not alone establish enough financial interest in a ward's welfare to establish standing to contest a conservatorship. In re Guardianship & Conservatorship of Barnhart, 290 Neb. 314, 859 N.W.2d 856 (2015).

In a conservatorship proceeding, where an objector has no concerns for the ward's welfare but only concerns of its own potential financial expectancy, such concerns do not give the objector standing to challenge a guardianship as "[a]ny person interested in the [ward's] welfare" under this section. In re Guardianship & Conservatorship of Barnhart, 290 Neb. 314, 859 N.W.2d 856 (2015).

"Any person interested in the welfare" of a protected person has standing to intervene and is not limited to those persons more narrowly defined as "interested persons" in subsection (21) of section 30-2209. In re Guardianship & Conservatorship of Cordel, 274 Neb. 545, 741 N.W.2d 675 (2007).

The county court erred as a matter of law in failing to hold an evidentiary hearing and in failing to resolve the disputed issues in the conservatorship proceedings when this section provides that the court may enter orders upon notice and hearing. In re Guardianship & Conservatorship of Trobough, 267 Neb. 661, 676 N.W.2d 364 (2004).