Emergency Guardianship in Connecticut: How to Get a Temporary Conservator in 72 Hours

Your parent was hospitalized after a stroke. The discharge planner says a rehab facility has a bed opening tomorrow, but someone needs to sign the admissions contract. Your parent can't communicate. There's no power of attorney. And you just learned that a standard conservatorship petition can take six to eight weeks in a high-volume district.

Connecticut's temporary conservatorship process exists for exactly this scenario — when delay would cause irreparable harm and the standard timeline isn't fast enough.

What Temporary Conservatorship Is

Under Connecticut probate law, when an aging parent faces immediate physical or financial danger and no valid planning documents exist, the court can appoint a temporary conservator on an expedited basis. The petition uses Form PC-302 (Petition for Appointment of Temporary Conservator) accompanied by Form PC-302CI (Confidential Information).

If the probate judge finds that waiting for a standard hearing would cause irreparable harm — meaning the parent's health, safety, or finances face imminent and serious risk — a temporary conservator can be appointed within 72 hours of filing.

This isn't a shortcut around the regular conservatorship process. It's an emergency bridge. The temporary appointment is strictly limited:

• 30-day initial term — the court's order expires after 30 days unless extended
• One 30-day extension — the court can extend for an additional 30 days while a permanent conservatorship petition is pending
• Limited scope — the temporary conservator's authority is confined to the specific emergency that justified the appointment

When Emergency Filing Is Appropriate

Temporary conservatorship is reserved for genuine emergencies. The probate court expects evidence of imminent harm, not future risk. Situations that typically justify it:

• A parent is hospitalized and unable to consent to necessary medical treatment, and no health care representative has been appointed
• A parent's bank accounts are being drained by a scammer or an exploitative caregiver, and immediate financial intervention is needed
• A parent is being evicted from a care facility and cannot make alternative living arrangements
• A parent is in immediate physical danger at home (wandering, inability to manage medications, fire risk) and cannot consent to a safer placement

Situations that typically don't justify emergency filing: general concern about a parent's declining capacity, disputes among siblings about care decisions, or wanting to expedite a process that could wait for a standard hearing.

How to File

Step 1: Contact the probate court in the district where your parent resides. Connecticut has over 50 probate court districts — you can find the correct one based on town of residence at ctprobate.gov.

Step 2: File Form PC-302 along with PC-302CI. The filing fee is the same as a standard conservatorship petition ($250), though fee waivers through Form PC-184A are available.

Step 3: Provide evidence of the emergency. For a temporary-conservator petition, a physician's report based on an examination no more than three days before filing must accompany the petition unless the parent refuses to be examined. The court will also want documentation of the emergency: evidence of financial exploitation (bank statements showing unauthorized withdrawals), hospital discharge paperwork showing an imminent deadline, or other concrete proof that delay will cause harm.

Step 4: The court reviews the petition on an expedited basis. If satisfied that the statutory standard is met, the judge can issue an order appointing a temporary conservator — potentially within the same day for extreme emergencies, though most are processed within 72 hours.

What Happens After the Emergency Appointment

The temporary conservatorship is a bridge, not a destination. During the 30-day (or extended 60-day) window, the family needs to:

File a permanent conservatorship petition using Form PC-300 if long-term court oversight will be needed. The temporary and permanent petitions can be filed simultaneously — many families file both on the same day.

Handle the immediate crisis that prompted the emergency filing: sign the facility admissions contract, freeze the compromised bank account, arrange for safe housing.

Gather documentation for the permanent hearing: the physician's evaluation (Form PC-370), the financial inventory, and evidence supporting the need for ongoing conservatorship.

If the emergency resolves and the parent regains capacity — for example, after a medical event that caused temporary confusion — the temporary conservatorship simply expires at the end of its term. No additional court action is required to terminate it.

The Relationship to Standard Planning

Emergency conservatorship exists because families didn't complete planning documents when they could have. A durable power of attorney and health care representative appointment, executed while the parent has capacity, eliminate the need for any probate court involvement — including the emergency process.

The $250 filing fee, the court-appointed attorney's costs, and the stress of navigating probate court during a medical crisis all go away with advance planning. Even if your parent initially resisted signing a POA, the temporary conservatorship process demonstrates why the conversation matters.

The Connecticut Power of Attorney & Guardianship Kit covers both the voluntary planning path and the full conservatorship process — standard and emergency — so families understand their options regardless of where they are in the crisis timeline.

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