§ 6-1437.Claims of personal representatives, guardians, and conservators.

Section 6-1437 addresses a fiduciary’s own financial interest in the estate they’re administering — a conflict distinct from the disclosure-before-appointment duty in § 6-1435, and one that comes up after appointment, when actual payments are being made. A personal representative with individual claims of their own against the decedent, arising before death, can’t pay more than $500 in the aggregate on those claims without first specifically telling the court about the conflict and getting court approval. Subsection (B) sets the identical $500 cap for a guardian or conservator’s own individual claims against the ward’s or protected person’s estate, separate from whatever compensation that guardian or conservator is owed for serving in that role.

Attorney fees get their own more generous, but still bounded, allowance. Unless the court orders otherwise, the attorney for a guardian or conservator can be paid reasonable fees from the estate up to $1,000 per year without needing a prior court order. But a guardian or conservator can never pay legal fees to themselves without a prior court order, and every fee paid under this allowance stays subject to the court’s review even after payment.

Whatever order authorizes a payment under this section has to include a specific safeguard: language stating that anyone aggrieved by payment of the claim can petition the court for a formal review of the claim or the payment. That keeps a check on these self-interested payments even after the money has already changed hands.