What Adult Guardianship Costs in Utah

Updated August 14, 2026. Quick answer: Utah fixes the petition filing fee at $375 by statute, and the periodic accounting is annual, with A $50,000 split and A parent exemption. Everything on this page is quoted from the jurisdiction’s own statute or an official court schedule, and where Utah 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 Utah fixes by statute

What the proceeding is called here. Guardian and conservator under Utah Code Title 75, ch. 5 (Protection of Persons Under Disability and Their Property).

The filing fee

$375.00 general – ‘The fee for filing any civil complaint or petition invoking the jurisdiction of a court of record not governed by another subsection is $375’ – except $35.00 ‘if the petition is for guardianship and THE PROSPECTIVE WARD IS THE BIOLOGICAL OR ADOPTIVE CHILD OF THE PETITIONER.’

It is not one number. The statute states it as: $375 general; $35 where the prospective ward is the petitioner’s biological or adoptive child

Read at statute source on 2026-08-12: Utah Code s.78A-2-301(1)(a), (1)(b)(vii).

The bond

Conservator: ‘the court SHALL require a conservator to furnish a bond … UNLESS THE COURT DISPENSES WITH SUCH BOND FOR GOOD CAUSE SHOWN’, subject to Title 7 (Financial Institutions Act) for corporate fiduciaries. Default amount = aggregate capital value of estate property in the conservator’s control, plus one year’s estimated income, minus restricted deposits and land the fiduciary cannot sell without authorization; other security (a pledge of securities or a mortgage of land) may be accepted in lieu of sureties. Guardian: a guardian coming into possession or control of a protected person’s funds or property ‘MAY BE REQUIRED by the court’ to furnish a bond on the same terms.

Read at statute source on 2026-08-12: Utah Code ss.75-5-411, 75-5-412, 75-5-105.

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. Utah 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

‘Unless the allegedly incapacitated person has counsel of the person’s own choice, the court shall appoint an attorney to represent the person in the proceeding the cost of which shall be paid by the allegedly incapacitated person, unless the allegedly incapacitated person and their parents are indigent.’ If the court determines the petition is without merit, the attorney fees and court costs are paid by the person filing the petition. If the court appoints the petitioner or the petitioner’s nominee as guardian, the petitioner is entitled to receive from the incapacitated person reasonable attorney fees and court costs incurred in bringing and defending the petition. Any visitor, lawyer, physician, conservator or special conservator appointed in a protective proceeding is entitled to reasonable compensation from the estate (s.75-5-414).

Read at statute source on 2026-08-12: Utah Code ss.75-5-303(2)(b)-(d), 75-5-414.

How often you have to account

Annual, with A $50,000 split and A parent exemption. 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.

Annual, with A $50,000 split and A parent exemption. For estates over $50,000 excluding the ward’s residence the conservator ‘shall send a report with a full accounting to the court on an annual basis’; for estates under $50,000 the conservator ‘shall fill out an INFORMAL annual report and mail the report to the court’ (s.75-5-417(2)). The same split applies to guardians where no conservator has been appointed (s.75-5-312(2)(k)). Corporate fiduciaries submit their internal report annually instead of fully petitioning. Crucially: ‘These provisions and penalties governing annual reports DO NOT APPLY IF THE CONSERVATOR IS THE PARENT of the ward’ (s.75-5-417(6)), and the guardian equivalent excuses a guardian or co-guardian who is the ward’s parent (s.75-5-312(7)(d)). The court may impose a penalty up to $5,000 for a substantial misstatement, gross impropriety, or wilful failure to file after notice and a two-month grace period – payable by the fiduciary and not by the ward or the estate.

Read at statute source on 2026-08-12: Utah Code ss.75-5-417(2)-(6), 75-5-312(2)(k), (4), (7).

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.