Indiana Guardianship Laws: Types, Petition, and Alternatives

Indiana guardianship laws, set out in Title 29, Article 3 of the Indiana Code, let a probate court appoint someone to make personal or financial decisions for a minor or for an adult who cannot manage their own affairs. The court decides who serves, what powers that person gets, and how long the arrangement lasts. Because guardianship takes away rights most adults exercise without thinking, every stage is court-supervised, and the court is required to consider less restrictive options first.

Who Can Be Placed Under Guardianship

Two groups qualify: minors and incapacitated adults. A minor is anyone under 18. An incapacitated person is defined by statute as someone who cannot manage property or self-care because of mental illness, developmental disability, physical illness, habitual substance abuse, or a similar condition.¹ The definition also reaches a person who cannot be located after a reasonable search and anyone with a developmental disability as defined elsewhere in Indiana law.

Being elderly, eccentric, or making choices family members disagree with is not enough. The petitioner has to show a recognized condition that actually prevents the person from running their own life.

Types of Guardianship Indiana Courts Can Order

The court picks a form that fits the situation, and courts are required to consider the least restrictive option that still protects the person.

Guardianship of a Minor

When a child under 18 has no parent able to make decisions, the court can appoint a guardian who steps into the parental role and gains essentially all of a parent’s authority over education, healthcare, and living arrangements.² It lasts until the child turns 18, marries, is adopted, or the court ends it earlier.³

Guardianship of an Incapacitated Adult

Adult guardianship works differently. The guardian takes on care, custody, and property responsibilities, but only to the extent the court orders.² Unlike a guardian of a minor, who automatically gets full parental authority, a guardian of an adult receives only the specific powers listed in the court’s order.

Limited Guardianship

If someone can still handle healthcare decisions but not finances, or vice versa, the court can tailor the order to those specific areas. The guardian’s authority stops where the order stops. Much of the real work in a contested hearing is drawing that line: figuring out which decisions the person can still make on their own.

Temporary Guardianship

When an emergency threatens immediate harm and no one else has authority to act, the court can appoint a temporary guardian for up to 90 days.⁴ Notice and a hearing are normally required, but the court can skip them if delay would cause irreparable harm. When that happens, the alleged incapacitated person can immediately petition to end or change the arrangement, and the court must hear that petition as soon as possible. The temporary guardian gets only the powers needed to address the emergency. The same mechanism lets a court suspend an existing guardian who isn’t doing the job and put a replacement in place while things get sorted out.

Filing a Petition and the Court Hearing

Anyone can file a guardianship petition in probate court. It has to include the alleged incapacitated person’s name, age, and residence; the nature of the incapacity; an approximate description and value of their property; and the name, address, and relationship of the proposed guardian.⁵

The court then sets a hearing. Unless the person already has a lawyer, the court may appoint one to represent them, and it can also appoint a guardian ad litem to independently investigate and make recommendations.⁵ Those are different jobs. The attorney advocates for what the person wants. The guardian ad litem advises the court on what the person needs.

At the hearing, the petitioner has to prove minority or incapacity. The court evaluates the proposed guardian, considers whether a less restrictive alternative would work, and, if guardianship is warranted, issues an order spelling out exactly what the guardian can and cannot do.

Who the Court Prefers to Appoint

Indiana law sets a priority order for who should serve as guardian:⁶

A person named in a durable power of attorney executed by the incapacitated person.
A standby guardian previously designated under Indiana’s standby guardian statute.
The incapacitated person’s spouse.
An adult child of the incapacitated person.
A parent, including someone nominated by a deceased parent’s will or a living parent’s power of attorney.
A blood relative or in-law who lived with the person for more than six months before the petition was filed.
A current caregiver nominated by the incapacitated person who is providing or paying for their care.

The court is not locked into the order. If it decides someone lower on the list would better serve the protected person, it can skip higher-priority candidates. Between candidates with equal priority, the court picks whoever it considers best qualified.

What an Indiana Guardian Must Do

A guardian works under two layers of obligation: mandatory duties that apply in every case and specific powers granted by the court order.

Mandatory Duties

Every guardian must manage the protected person’s property under the same standard of care that applies to a trustee. That means protecting and preserving property, conserving anything beyond current needs, encouraging the protected person’s self-reliance and independence, and considering recommendations from the person’s parents about appropriate care.⁷ The self-reliance requirement is easy to overlook. The guardian’s job is to fill the gaps the person cannot fill, not to take over the whole life.

Guardians must also report on the protected person’s physical and mental condition as the court directs.²

Powers the Court Can Grant

Available powers include establishing where the protected person lives (in or outside Indiana), consenting to medical treatment, consenting to a minor’s marriage or adoption, receiving income and property from any source (including insurance, government benefits, and trust distributions), and purchasing a home or protecting real estate interests when the court finds it’s in the person’s best interest.⁸ For a minor’s guardian, the full slate typically applies. For an adult’s guardian, only the specific powers the court lists apply.

Biennial Reports

Every guardian other than a temporary guardian must file a written, verified account with the court at least every two years, within 30 days of the anniversary of the appointment. The report has to describe where the protected person lives, their current condition, whether the guardianship is still necessary, and whether any less restrictive alternatives have been considered. A final accounting is due within 30 days after the guardianship ends.⁹ Failing to file can lead to removal.

Bond

Unless the court finds a bond unnecessary, every guardian must post a surety bond before taking office. Banks and trust companies are exempt. The bond is calculated by adding the total value of guardianship property plus one year of estimated income, then subtracting property the guardian cannot sell without a court order.¹⁰ The court can reduce the amount if it directs the guardian to place funds in listed securities, a jointly controlled savings account, or an Indiana bank or trust company acting as agent, and it can accept alternative collateral like pledged securities or a mortgage on real property.

Federal Benefits and Taxes Are Separate

Appointment as a guardian under Indiana law does not automatically give you authority over the protected person’s Social Security or SSI. The Social Security Administration runs its own Representative Payee Program with a separate appointment process and generally prefers family or friends, turning to organizations only when no suitable individual is available.¹¹ Representative payees must keep records of how payments are spent or saved. Most must also complete an annual Representative Payee Report, though parents or legal guardians living in the same household as a minor beneficiary are exempt from that report.

For tax matters, a guardian handling the protected person’s finances should file IRS Form 56 to notify the IRS of the fiduciary relationship, both when the guardianship begins and again when it ends.¹²

Ending or Changing a Guardianship

Guardianships are not permanent by design.

Automatic and Mandatory Termination

A minor’s guardianship ends automatically at age 18 or on death, and the court may terminate it on marriage or adoption. For an adult, the court must terminate the guardianship if the person is no longer incapacitated or has died.³

Discretionary Termination

The court can also end a guardianship if the guardianship property is worth $3,500 or less, if the protected person moves to another state where a new guardian has been appointed, or if the guardianship is simply no longer necessary for any other reason.³ A protected person who cannot get access to their own medical records can ask the court for a confidential health disclosure order to obtain them.

Modification

Short of termination, the court can adjust the guardian’s powers as the person’s condition changes or replace a guardian who is not performing. The biennial report, which forces the guardian to specifically address whether the guardianship is still needed and whether less restrictive alternatives have been considered, is built for exactly this kind of course correction.⁹

Alternatives That Avoid Guardianship

Durable Power of Attorney

A durable power of attorney lets someone name a trusted person to make financial or healthcare decisions for them. Timing is critical: the person signing has to still have the mental capacity to understand what they are doing. Once capacity is gone and no power of attorney exists, guardianship is usually the only remaining option. Where a valid durable power of attorney is already in place, the named agent gets top priority if a guardianship petition is filed anyway.⁶

Supported Decision-Making Agreements

Indiana’s guardianship code includes a supported decision-making statute. An adult can keep their own decision-making authority and designate one or more supporters who help them understand information and weigh options.¹³ The agreement must be in writing, dated, and signed before a notary, and each supporter signs a separate consent acknowledging their duties. The adult retains all legal rights and makes the final call. For someone with a developmental disability or mild cognitive challenges who can still express preferences, this preserves autonomy that a guardianship would remove.

Rights the Protected Person Keeps

Guardianship does not erase every right. Unless the court specifically orders otherwise, an adult under guardianship in Indiana keeps the right to vote, the right to challenge or seek to end the guardianship, the right to ask the court to appoint a different guardian, and the right to visit with friends and family.¹⁴ The mandatory duty to encourage self-reliance and independence reinforces that principle throughout the guardian’s tenure.⁷ People recover, conditions stabilize, and supported decision-making may become workable where it wasn’t before. The two-year review cycle is designed to catch those changes and match the level of intervention to what the person actually needs.

1
Justia. Indiana Code Title 29 Article 3 Chapter 1 – Definitions
2
Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 29-3-8-1 – Enumerated Responsibilities of Guardian
3
Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 29-3-12-1 – Termination of Guardianship
4
Justia. Indiana Code 29-3-3-4 – Temporary Guardians
5
Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 29-3-5-1 – Petition for Appointment of Guardian
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Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 29-3-5-5 – Persons Entitled to Consideration for Appointment as Guardian
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Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 29-3-8-3 – Mandatory Responsibilities of Guardian
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Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 29-3-8-2 – Powers Which Guardian May Exercise
9
Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 29-3-9-6 – Biennial Accounts
10
Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 29-3-7-1 – Guardian’s Bond Amount and Collateral
11
Social Security Administration. Representative Payee Program
12
Internal Revenue Service. About Form 56 – Notice Concerning Fiduciary Relationship
13
Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 29-3-14-7 – Supported Decision Making Agreements
14
Indiana Disability Rights. Adult Guardianship in Indiana – The Basics