Pierre v. Brown
Pierre v. Brown , 169 So.3d 262 (Fla. 3d DCA 2015), 2015 WL 4111330 In this guardianship fee dispute, the Court affirmed a harsh result for a successor guardian who incurred fees in cleaning up a mess created by the initial guardian. The initial guardian of the ward incurred over $200,000 in fees. That prior guardian secured assets of the ward, repaired a residence the ward inherited from his mother, reduced the mother's funeral bill and recovered compensation paid to a disbarred attorney. These actions resulted in a deposit of $150,000 into a trust for the ward, on top of the ward's $78.40/month disability income and $1,400/month rental income from the real property. Virtually all of the wards assets were paid out as fees to the initial guardian. Once the successor guardian was appointed, he discovered that no tax returns had been filed for the ward since 2004, and the income tax obligations of the mother's estate and real estate taxes were never paid. ...