§ 6-1441.Bonds in guardianship/conservatorship cases.

Once a court appoints a guardian or conservator to manage someone else’s money or property, § 6-1441 supplies the financial backstop. For any estate worth more than $10,000, the court must order an approved corporate surety bond. The amount is tied to a formula: the aggregate capital value of the personal property the guardian or conservator controls, plus one year’s estimated income from every source, minus the value of any securities or other assets locked up under an arrangement requiring a court order before they can be removed. Because an estate’s value changes, the court reviews the bond periodically and adjusts it to reflect any increase.

The rule does not insist on a bond from a surety company in every case. In lieu of sureties, the court may accept other security for the bond’s performance, such as a pledge of securities or a mortgage on land the conservator or guardian owns. And the court can eliminate the bond requirement, or decrease or increase a bond already in place, whenever good cause is shown — including when the protected person has signed a valid power of attorney nominating a guardian or conservator and expressly waiving the bond requirement. Where a power of attorney does not fully answer the bond question, the rule directs the court to weigh, among other good-cause factors, the protected person’s own choice of an attorney in fact or alternate attorney in fact.

Some fiduciaries never need a bond at all. The Office of Public Guardian is exempt, as is any financial institution — banks, trust companies, and similar entities defined in Neb. Rev. Stat. § 8-101(12) — along with their officers, directors, employees, or agents serving as conservator, and any trust company acting as conservator. These institutions already answer to their own regulatory oversight, which makes an added bond redundant.