Most of this page is for a situation that is not quite an emergency. This part is for the ones that are. When someone is at genuine risk — unable to manage, being evicted, being discharged somewhere they cannot live, or money is being moved in a way nobody authorised — waiting for the ordinary timetable is not neutral. It changes the outcome.
What emergency guardianship means
New York courts can issue temporary or emergency orders to protect a person’s health, housing and finances while a full guardianship is pending. It is not the same as a final guardianship. It is a bridge, and it is granted where the court is satisfied that waiting would cause harm. The standard is necessity, and it has to be shown rather than asserted.
What to do in the first hour
- 1Make sure the person is safe. If there is an immediate physical or medical risk, that is a hospital or emergency services question before it is a legal one.
- 2Write down the specific facts: what has happened, when, what is not being paid, what decisions are being made without authority, what is at risk and by when.
- 3Collect what exists: identification, any power of attorney or proxy, recent medical records, the lease or mortgage, bills, bank details.
- 4Call the office and say plainly whether there is a deadline — an eviction date, a discharge date, a foreclosure notice.
- 5Do not move money, sign documents or agree to anything on the person’s behalf until you know what you are authorised to do. It can create real problems later.
The fifth point is the one people break. Acting kindly without authority is a genuine risk: a bank will freeze the account, a title company will refuse, and a court may question what was done and why.
How a fast filing actually happens
- A triage call to establish what is genuinely urgent and which court has jurisdiction.
- A document checklist: identification, medical notes, bills, lease or mortgage, evidence of the specific risk.
- A focused petition with supporting affidavit, drafted around the actual emergency rather than the general situation.
- Filing, notarisation and service on the required parties.
- Preparation for the hearing — what will be asked, and how to answer it plainly.
Working with hospitals
Hospital social workers and discharge planners are usually involved whether you want them to be or not, and they have their own requirements about a patient’s ability to live safely on discharge. Coordinating with them is not optional and it is not adversarial. What they need and what the court needs usually overlap, so it is worth asking the hospital for everything they have in writing, and worth asking what they will say to the court if asked.
Preserving benefits while you work
There is almost always something running that stops if nobody acts: a lease, a utility account, a benefit, a prescription, a mortgage. Those are usually ordinary administrative tasks that do not require guardianship authority. Where they do require it, the answer is a limited temporary appointment rather than a full guardianship — which is exactly the point of asking for the least that solves the problem.
Getting to us
The office is at 118-21 Queens Boulevard, Suite 504, Forest Hills — on Queens Boulevard, near the Kew Gardens–Union Turnpike E/F station, close to Queens Borough Hall, and a short trip from the Supreme Court courthouse in Jamaica. If you are coming from Forest Hills, Rego Park, Kew Gardens or Flushing Meadows, it is close by. Call (718) 544-1000 and say what the immediate problem is.
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Guardianship · 3 minute read · Published September 11, 2025