Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5837 amends numerous provisions of chapter 11.130 RCW governing guardianship, conservatorship, and protective arrangements. The bill primarily makes procedural changes: it requires hearings on adult guardianship petitions to be held within 60 days unless an extension is timely requested and granted; requires personal service of certain petitions and hearing notices to the respondent and court visitor within five court days of filing; mandates that required notices include a clear statement of rights in a specified form and at least 16-point font; and directs courts to appoint a trained court visitor on receipt of many petitions. The bill also prescribes detailed duties, timelines, and reporting requirements for court visitors (including filing a statement within five days of appointment, filing a report at least 15 days before the hearing, and investigating alternatives to full guardianship/conservatorship), and sets procedures for short three-day motions to remove a court visitor for lack of expertise, unreasonable rates, or conflicts of interest. The bill modifies counsel and hearing procedures: court visitors must petition for appointment of an attorney within five days if the respondent objects or requests counsel; courts must appoint counsel when a respondent objects or when the court finds rights cannot otherwise be protected; appointed counsel must be provided as soon as practicable and a period of less than three weeks before a final hearing is presumed inadequate absent convincing record evidence; and attorneys for respondents must try to ascertain and advocate the respondent’s wishes and, when those wishes are not reasonably ascertainable, advocate for the least restrictive alternative. The bill also requires conservatorship and guardianship orders to include specific findings (including that less restrictive alternatives were considered), to identify persons entitled to specified notices (with spouse, domestic partner, and adult children presumptively entitled for adults), and to state whether rights such as voting and marriage are retained or removed with supporting findings. Visitor reports and professional evaluations must be sealed on filing but are available to specified parties. The bill addresses fees and payment for court visitors (the appointing order must state an hourly rate and a maximum without additional review; fees are generally charged to the respondent unless payment would cause substantial hardship in which case the county is responsible; frivolous petitions result in the petitioner being charged), clarifies public-access and confidentiality rules for proceedings and records, and adds provisions governing supported decision-making agreements (disqualifications for supporters, reliance and liability protections for good-faith reliance, a supporter certification mechanism, a five-business-day acceptance timeframe after certification, specified exceptions to acceptance, and remedies including court orders and reasonable attorneys’ fees for wrongful refusal). The provided extracts are incomplete in places and several referenced RCW subsections and forms are not reproduced here, so some details and the full text of certain amended sections could not be confirmed from the material supplied.

If enacted, this bill will make guardianship, conservatorship, and protective-arrangement cases move faster and impose clearer, earlier duties on people the court appoints to investigate and on courts themselves. Courts must set hearings quickly (generally within about 60 days) and appoint trained court visitors who must file a short disclosure within five days and a full written report at least 15 days before the hearing; visitor reports and professional evaluations are sealed but available to key parties. Respondents who object or ask for a lawyer will get one appointed promptly (the visitor must request appointment within five days of meeting the respondent), and courts should provide enough time for that lawyer to prepare (less than three weeks before a final hearing is presumed too short). Notices to respondents must be clear and large-print, conservators must give rights information within 14 days, and orders must identify who gets specific ongoing notices. The groups most affected are superior courts (more scheduling and review deadlines), court visitors (more work, training expectations, required disclosures, set hourly rates and caps), respondents and their attorneys (greater access to counsel and clearer participation rights), petitioners and proposed guardians/conservators (more scrutiny and required findings about less restrictive alternatives), and counties (they may have to pay visitor fees when respondents cannot without hardship). Counties and petitioners also face fee risk when petitions are frivolous, and third parties must generally accept supported decision-making agreements when properly certified or face court orders and possible fee liability. Some details that affect how these changes work in practice—exact forms, fee caps, and later sections of the bill—are not included in the extracted text, so the precise procedures and financial impacts are partly uncertain.