Updated August 14, 2026. Quick answer: Montana fixes the petition filing fee at $70 by statute, and there is no single accounting interval — split: full guardian annual unless waived; limited guardian court-set; conservator ‘not less than annually’. Everything on this page is quoted from the jurisdiction’s own statute or an official court schedule, and where Montana 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 Montana fixes by statute
| Item | What the text says | Where it says it |
|---|---|---|
| Petition filing fee | Flat statutory fee of $70, and notably the same fee whether the petition is for a guardian, a conservator, or (by the statute’s plain text) both — unlike Maine, Montana’s clerk-fee statute does not price a joined petition separately. | Mont. Code Ann. §25-1-201(1)(m) |
| Bond | Bond applies only to the conservator of the estate (Part 4); no bond provision exists in Part 3 (guardian of the incapacitated person). Unlike Maine, Montana’s bond is fully discretionary at every estate size — ‘the court MAY require a conservator to furnish a bond’ — there is no mandatory $-threshold comparable to Maine’s $50,000 trigger, and the statute does not use waiver language because it is opt-in rather than default-on. Amount, when required: aggregate capital value of the estate in the conservator’s control plus one year’s estimated income (ad valorem), minus certain restricted property — structurally identical formula to Maine’s, both being upc-derived. The court may accept collateral (pledged securities or a land mortgage) instead of a surety. No statute allocating the bond premium/cost to the estate or any party was found. | Mont. Code Ann. §72-5-411, §72-5-412; no bond section exists in Part 3, Guardians of Incapacitated Persons |
| Guardian ad litem and attorney fees | Two different mechanisms depending on which proceeding: (1) In the Part 3 guardianship-of-the-person proceeding, §72-5-315(2) lets the court either appoint ‘an appropriate official’ or order the office of state public defender to assign counsel to represent the allegedly incapacitated person under the Montana Public Defender Act (Title 47, ch. 1) — i.e., counsel can be state-funded through the public defender system, and Part 3 contains no section stating who bears that cost when a public defender is not used. A court-appointed ‘visitor’ (defined at §72-5-313: an officer/employee/special-appointee of the court, e.g. Trained in law, nursing, social work, medicine, mental health, pastoral care, education, or rehabilitation) conducts the investigative interview/report function comparable to a GAL, but no fee-payer rule for the visitor appears in Part 3 either. (2) In the Part 4 protective-proceeding/conservatorship context, §72-5-432 does state a payer rule: ‘If not otherwise compensated for services rendered, any visitor, lawyer, physician, conservator, or special conservator appointed in a protective proceeding is entitled to reasonable compensation from the estate.’ No statutory rate cap found in either part. | Mont. Code Ann. §72-5-315(2) (guardianship, appointment mechanism only); §72-5-313 (visitor definition); §72-5-432 (protective proceeding, estate pays) |
| Periodic accounting or report | Frequency differs by fiduciary type and is not uniformly ‘annual’: a full guardian of an incapacitated adult must report the ward’s condition and estate annually for the preceding year, unless waived by the court; a limited guardian’s reporting obligation is instead ‘as required by the court or by court rule’ (i.e., court-set, not a fixed statutory cadence). A conservator must account to the court ‘not less than annually, unless the court directs otherwise,’ plus on resignation, removal, and other court-directed times. No separate statutory filing fee for the periodic report/accounting itself was found in the district-court clerk-fee statute (§25-1-201), which prices only the initial petition. | Mont. Code Ann. §72-5-321(2)(e), (3) (guardian); §72-5-438 (conservator) |
What the proceeding is called here. Montana has not adopted the newer Uniform Guardianship, Conservatorship and Other Protective Arrangements Act (ugcopaa) that Maine uses; Montana’s Title 72, chapter 5 is still styled ‘UPC — Persons Under Disability Guardianship and Conservatorship’ (the older Uniform Probate Code Article 5 framework). Guardian of the person (Part 3, §§72-5-301 to 72-5-325, ‘Guardians of Incapacitated Persons’) and conservator of the estate/property (Part 4, §§72-5-401 to 72-5-450, ‘Protection of Property of Minors and Persons Under Disability’) are separate proceedings under separate statutory parts, each with its own petition, bond, and reporting rules.
The filing fee
Flat statutory fee of $70, and notably the same fee whether the petition is for a guardian, a conservator, or (by the statute’s plain text) both — unlike Maine, Montana’s clerk-fee statute does not price a joined petition separately.
on the filing of an application for informal, formal, or supervised probate or for the appointment of a personal representative or the filing of a petition for the appointment of a guardian or conservator, from the applicant or petitioner, $70, which includes the fee for filing a will for probate.
Read at statute source on 2026-08-12: Mont. Code Ann. §25-1-201(1)(m).
The bond
Bond applies only to the conservator of the estate (Part 4); no bond provision exists in Part 3 (guardian of the incapacitated person). Unlike Maine, Montana’s bond is fully discretionary at every estate size — ‘the court MAY require a conservator to furnish a bond’ — there is no mandatory $-threshold comparable to Maine’s $50,000 trigger, and the statute does not use waiver language because it is opt-in rather than default-on. Amount, when required: aggregate capital value of the estate in the conservator’s control plus one year’s estimated income (ad valorem), minus certain restricted property — structurally identical formula to Maine’s, both being upc-derived. The court may accept collateral (pledged securities or a land mortgage) instead of a surety. No statute allocating the bond premium/cost to the estate or any party was found.
The court may require a conservator to furnish a bond conditioned upon faithful discharge of all duties of the trust according to law with sureties that it specifies.
(2) Unless otherwise directed, the bond must be in the amount of the aggregate capital value of the property of the estate in the conservator’s control plus 1 year’s estimated income minus the value of securities deposited under arrangements requiring an order of the court for their removal and the value of any land that the fiduciary, by express limitation of power, lacks power to sell or convey without court authorization.
Read at statute source on 2026-08-12: Mont. Code Ann. §72-5-411, §72-5-412; no bond section exists in Part 3, Guardians of Incapacitated Persons.
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. Montana 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
Two different mechanisms depending on which proceeding: (1) In the Part 3 guardianship-of-the-person proceeding, §72-5-315(2) lets the court either appoint ‘an appropriate official’ or order the office of state public defender to assign counsel to represent the allegedly incapacitated person under the Montana Public Defender Act (Title 47, ch. 1) — i.e., counsel can be state-funded through the public defender system, and Part 3 contains no section stating who bears that cost when a public defender is not used. A court-appointed ‘visitor’ (defined at §72-5-313: an officer/employee/special-appointee of the court, e.g. Trained in law, nursing, social work, medicine, mental health, pastoral care, education, or rehabilitation) conducts the investigative interview/report function comparable to a GAL, but no fee-payer rule for the visitor appears in Part 3 either. (2) In the Part 4 protective-proceeding/conservatorship context, §72-5-432 does state a payer rule: ‘If not otherwise compensated for services rendered, any visitor, lawyer, physician, conservator, or special conservator appointed in a protective proceeding is entitled to reasonable compensation from the estate.’ No statutory rate cap found in either part.
The allegedly incapacitated person may have counsel of the person’s own choice or the court may, in the interest of justice, appoint an appropriate official or order the office of state public defender, provided for in 2-15-1029, to assign counsel pursuant to the Montana Public Defender Act, Title 47, chapter 1, to represent the person in the proceeding.
If not otherwise compensated for services rendered, any visitor, lawyer, physician, conservator, or special conservator appointed in a protective proceeding is entitled to reasonable compensation from the estate.
Read at statute source on 2026-08-12: Mont. Code Ann. §72-5-315(2) (guardianship, appointment mechanism only); §72-5-313 (visitor definition); §72-5-432 (protective proceeding, estate pays).
How often you have to account
There is no single interval here. Montana runs two tracks at different cadences — Split: full guardian annual unless waived; limited guardian court-set; conservator ‘not less than annually’ — so which one binds you depends on what you were appointed to be. A table with one interval per state cannot represent this, and most published ones try. Your appointing court can order more often than the statutory minimum; the document that governs you is your order.
Frequency differs by fiduciary type and is not uniformly ‘annual’: a full guardian of an incapacitated adult must report the ward’s condition and estate annually for the preceding year, unless waived by the court; a limited guardian’s reporting obligation is instead ‘as required by the court or by court rule’ (i.e., court-set, not a fixed statutory cadence). A conservator must account to the court ‘not less than annually, unless the court directs otherwise,’ plus on resignation, removal, and other court-directed times. No separate statutory filing fee for the periodic report/accounting itself was found in the district-court clerk-fee statute (§25-1-201), which prices only the initial petition.
The limited guardian is required to report the condition of the incapacitated person and of the estate that has been subject to the guardian’s possession and control, as required by the court or by court rule.
(e) Unless waived by the court, a full guardian is required to report the condition of the ward and of the estate that has been subject to the full guardian’s possession or control annually for the preceding year.
Read at statute source on 2026-08-12: Mont. Code Ann. §72-5-321(2)(e), (3) (guardian); §72-5-438 (conservator).
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
| Item | Citation | Tier | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Petition filing fee | Mont. Code Ann. §25-1-201(1)(m) | statute | 2026-08-12 |
| Bond | Mont. Code Ann. §72-5-411, §72-5-412; no bond section exists in Part 3, Guardians of Incapacitated Persons | statute | 2026-08-12 |
| Guardian ad litem and attorney fees | Mont. Code Ann. §72-5-315(2) (guardianship, appointment mechanism only); §72-5-313 (visitor definition); §72-5-432 (protective proceeding, estate pays) | statute | 2026-08-12 |
| Periodic accounting or report | Mont. Code Ann. §72-5-321(2)(e), (3) (guardian); §72-5-438 (conservator) | statute | 2026-08-12 |
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.