What Adult Guardianship Costs in North Dakota

Updated August 14, 2026. Quick answer: North Dakota fixes the petition filing fee at $160 by statute, and the periodic accounting is annual (both tracks); court may require more frequent, never less. Everything on this page is quoted from the jurisdiction’s own statute or an official court schedule, and where North Dakota publishes no figure this page says so rather than printing an estimate. What drives the rest of the bill — lawyers, an investigation, a capacity evaluation — is on what guardianship costs.

What North Dakota fixes by statute

What the proceeding is called here. North Dakota splits the two proceedings into separate chapters of Title 30.1 (its version of the upc): N.D.C.C. ch. 30.1-28 ‘Guardians of Incapacitated Persons’ (person, called ‘guardian’/’ward’) and ch. 30.1-29 ‘Protection of Property of Persons Under Disability and Minors’ (estate, called ‘conservator’/’protected person’; despite the chapter’s title, the operative sections use ‘conservator’). They are filed and processed as distinct petitions/orders, though the state’s own court fee schedule prices both under one umbrella (‘Title 30.1’).

The filing fee

$160 to file a guardianship, conservatorship/protective-proceeding, probate, or other testamentary case under Title 30.1 in district court — this is not itemized by name in the underlying statute (N.D.C.C. 27-05.2-03), which only distinguishes a general ‘$160 case for decision’ tier from a ‘$20 other matter’ tier; the State Court Administrator’s own published fee schedule resolves that ambiguity explicitly for guardianship. There is a narrow carve-out to no fee when the guardianship petition is filed by a member of the proposed ward’s individual treatment/habilitation plan team or by a state employee acting in an official capacity.

19……..For filing probate, guardianship, or any other testamentary case (Title 30.1) ……………………………………………………………………………………………$160 …………Except where petition for guardianship is filed by a member of an individual habilitation plan team or other state employee in performance of official duties (§30.1-28-03) ……………………………………………………………………….No Fee

No filing fee under this or any other section may be required when a petition for guardianship of an incapacitated person is filed by a member of the individual treatment plan team for the alleged incapacitated person or by any state employee in the performance of official duties.

Read at official source on 2026-08-12: N.D.C.C. § 27-05.2-03; fee classification per North Dakota Court Fee Schedule (State Court Administrator), Item I.19; no-fee exception at N.D.C.C. § 30.1-28-03(1).

The bond

For a guardian of an incapacitated person: bond is discretionary — ‘The court may require a guardian to furnish a bond in the amount and with sureties as the court specifies’ (30.1-28-04(7)) — no presumption either way stated. For a conservator: bond is presumptively required — ‘the court shall require a conservator to furnish a bond … [u]nless reduced or waived by the court for good cause’ — and where not reduced/waived, the amount is set by formula: aggregate capital value of the estate property under the conservator’s control, plus one year’s estimated income (including VA benefits), minus the value of court-controlled deposited securities and of land the conservator lacks power to sell (30.1-29-11). No rule in either chapter allocates who pays the bond premium — both full chapters (56,564 + 58,342 = 114,906 characters of text extracted from the PDF) were searched for the word ‘premium’: no occurrence in either.

The court may require a guardian to furnish a bond in the amount and with sureties as the court specifies.

Except as provided herein, the court shall require a conservator to furnish a bond conditioned upon faithful discharge of all duties of the trust according to law, with sureties as it shall specify. Unless reduced or waived by the court for good cause, the bond shall be in the amount of the aggregate capital value of the property of the estate in the conservator’s control plus one year’s estimated income, including veterans’ administration benefits received during that year, minus the value of securities deposited under arrangements requiring an order of the court for their removal and the value of any land which the fiduciary, by express limitation of power, lacks power to sell or convey without court authorization.

Read at statute source on 2026-08-12: N.D.C.C. §§ 30.1-28-04(7), 30.1-29-11, 30.1-29-12.

Who pays the premium is not answered. A surety bond carries a recurring premium and it is usually the largest ongoing cost of a guardianship of the estate. North Dakota states no express rule on who bears it in the chapter read for this page, and no figure for what one costs is published anywhere this project could verify. That is a gap in the law and in the published record, not a gap we have filled with a guess.

Guardian ad litem and attorney fees

Guardianship proceedings: the court must appoint an attorney to act as guardian ad litem, an expert examiner, and a visitor upon filing of the petition (30.1-28-03(3)). If the court appoints a visitor, lawyer, or expert examiner, that person ‘may receive reasonable compensation from the ward’s estate if the compensation will not unreasonably jeopardize the ward’s well-being’ (30.1-28-03(11)); the appointed guardian is compensated on the same estate-sourced, well-being-conditioned basis, weighed against a named list of factors, with court approval required before any payment (30.1-28-03(12)-(14)). conservatorship/protective proceedings: the court appoints a guardian ad litem and expert examiner (30.1-29-07); the approved conservator, and any lawyer/expert examiner/special conservator not otherwise compensated, is entitled to ‘reasonable compensation from the estate’ (30.1-29-07(7), 30.1-29-14(2)). payer in both proceedings is the estate, never the petitioner or the state — and in guardianship specifically, payment is expressly conditioned on not jeopardizing the ward’s well-being/estate, i.e., an indigent ward’s estate can leave the GAL/attorney uncompensated (no state/county backstop found). distinctive rate cap: for a conservatorship funded from va-administration payments, compensation to the conservator from that money is capped at 5% of the VA money received during the accounting period (minimum allowance up to $50/year) — a real statutory rate cap, just a narrow one.

If the court appoints a visitor, lawyer, or expert examiner in a guardianship proceeding, that person may receive reasonable compensation from the ward’s estate if the compensation will not unreasonably jeopardize the ward’s well-being.

When the estate is derived, in whole or in part, from money paid or being paid by the veterans’ administration to the conservator or the conservator’s predecessor for the benefit of the protected person, the compensation allowed from such money to the conservator shall be limited to five percent of the amount of money received from the agency during the period covered by the account, except that the court may allow a minimum compensation of not to exceed fifty dollars per year.

Read at statute source on 2026-08-12: N.D.C.C. §§ 30.1-28-03(3),(11)-(14); 30.1-29-07(7)-(9); 30.1-29-14.

How often you have to account

Annual (both tracks); court may require more frequent, never less. Do not carry that assumption across a state line: the interval is set by each state separately, several are biennial or triennial, and your own appointing court can order more often than the statutory minimum. The document that governs you is your order.

Guardian: ‘shall file an annual report with the court’ describing the ward’s status, changes since the last period, and an accounting of the ward’s estate (30.1-28-12(8)); failure to file triggers a show-cause/contempt process (30.1-28-12.1) — explicitly annual. Conservator: ‘At least once annually and at other times as the court may direct, a conservator shall file a report and account with the court’ (30.1-29-19(1)) — explicitly annual (with court discretion to require more-frequent filings, not less). No separate filing fee for either the annual report or the annual accounting was found anywhere in N.D.C.C. ch. 27-05.2 (the clerk-of-court fee statute) or the State Court Administrator’s Court Fee Schedule PDF — both only price the initial case filing ($160, see the petition filing fee row above) and neither lists a recurring per-report charge.

A guardian shall file an annual report with the court regarding the exercise of powers and duties in areas of authority specified in the court’s order of appointment.

At least once annually and at other times as the court may direct, a conservator shall file a report and account with the court regarding the exercise of powers and duties specified in the court’s order of appointment.

Read at statute source on 2026-08-12: N.D.C.C. §§ 30.1-28-12(8), 30.1-28-12.1, 30.1-29-19.

What an accounting has to contain, and the duties that come with it, are on the guardian accounting duties page.

What this page does not tell you

All four items this page set out to establish were read at primary and are stated above with their cites. What is missing everywhere, in every state, is a price: what an attorney charges to bring an uncontested petition, what a court-ordered capacity evaluation or investigation costs, and what a surety charges for the bond. None of it is published by any authority, and this page does not estimate it.

Where this fits

The filing fee is the smallest part of what a guardianship costs, and the national page sets out the costs that are larger and are not published anywhere. If nobody has been appointed yet, the comparison that actually matters is against the document that avoids this proceeding entirely — guardianship against a power of attorney.

Sources

General consumer information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Guardianship and conservatorship are governed by STATE law and differ materially between states; every figure here is quoted from the cited source as read on the date shown and changes without notice. Read as of August 14, 2026.