Conservator Sold a Conserved Person's Home Without Notice

Attorney Answer

A conservator cannot sell the conserved person's real property on their own — it takes a written application to the Probate Court, notice, a hearing, and a finding that the sale is in the best interests of the parties in interest. If none of that happened, you have a real case. If it did happen and your grandmother simply does not recall the notice, you have a much harder one. Your first job is to find out which.

The governing law. General Statutes § 45a-164 governs the sale or mortgage of real property held for a conserved person. A conservator of the estate must apply in writing to the Probate Court, and the court may authorize a sale only after such notice as the court orders, after a hearing, and only on finding the sale would be in the best interests of the parties in interest. General Statutes § 45a-655 sets the conservator's separate duties as conservator of the estate, including filing an inventory within two months of appointment, and addresses determinations regarding breach of fiduciary duty. General Statutes §§ 45a-644 et seq. govern the appointment, powers, duties, and removal of conservators, and give the Probate Court continuing supervisory authority over the conservator's management of the estate. That supervisory role is your practical route: this is a Probate Court fight before it is a Superior Court lawsuit.

How you have to plead it matters. In Murphy v. Wakelee, 247 Conn. 396 (1998), a claim against a conservator for breach of fiduciary duty, the Supreme Court held that the burden shifts to the fiduciary to prove fair dealing by clear and convincing evidence only where the complaint alleges fraud, self-dealing, or conflict of interest. Where the claim is essentially negligent administration with no such allegation, the plaintiff keeps the ordinary burden and gets no burden-shifting instruction. The Court declined to create a special exception for conservators, reasoning that the Probate Court's supervisory authority already protects the ward's estate — and the party suing the conservator lost. The lesson is about drafting, not about winning: if the facts show the conservator or someone close to the conservator profited from the sale, that must be alleged specifically.

One thing to be careful about. Barash v. Lembo, 348 Conn. 264 (2023), held that a breach of fiduciary duty claim against a trustee does not require an allegation of self-dealing, and overruled contrary Appellate Court precedent. But the Court expressly left open what elements apply to non-trustee fiduciaries. A conservator is a non-trustee fiduciary, so do not let anyone tell you Barash settles the elements of your claim. Read with Murphy, the safe understanding is that self-dealing is what triggers the heightened burden on the fiduciary, and whether a bare imprudence claim suffices against a conservator is unsettled.

What you can do

1. Go to the Probate Court district where the conservatorship was opened and ask the clerk for the entire file: the appointment decree, the inventory, any application to sell real property, the decree authorizing sale, and any accountings. 2. Pull the deed from the town land records. Note the buyer, the price, the date, and whether the deed recites Probate Court authorization. Compare the price to the assessment. 3. If there was no application, notice, or hearing under § 45a-164, say so in writing to the Probate Court immediately and ask for a hearing. 4. File a petition asking the court to compel an accounting of the sale proceeds and, if warranted, to remove the conservator. 5. If the buyer is related to, employed by, or in business with the conservator, or if the price was below market, plead those facts specifically — under Murphy that is what shifts the burden. 6. Find out whether your grandmother has capacity to participate and whether she wants the conservatorship modified or ended; she is entitled to be heard. 7. Move quickly. Once a buyer with no notice of the problem has closed and recorded, unwinding title becomes far harder than recovering money from the conservator.

⏱ Time limits apply. Appeal periods from Probate Court decrees are short and run from the decree, not from the day the family learned of it. Get the date of every decree in that file to a lawyer right away, because which remedies remain open depends on those dates.