Seniors experiencing a loss of autonomy
What are the tutor’s responsibilities?
As a tutor, you have an important role to play for the incapacitated person you represent. You also have some obligations to respect to show you are carrying out your responsibilities correctly.
Your responsibilities are set out in a judgment
Tutorship is adapted to suit the degree of incapacity of the represented person. The judgment will therefore set out the decisions and actions the incapacitated person is able to continue taking on their own, and those that are your responsibility as tutor.
The judgment will also specify whether you will act as tutor to the person or tutor to property -- or both.
Whatever your responsibilities under the judgment, your decisions must always be in the incapacitated person's best interests, protect their rights, and respect their autonomy. You must take their wishes and preferences into account and keep them informed, as much as possible, of your decisions.
Many responsibilities
When you act as tutor to the person, your responsibilities typically involve everything that concerns the well-being of the incapacitated person.
Among other things, you must:
- ensure the moral well-being of the incapacitated person,
- defend their rights,
- consent to or refuse medical care on their behalf.
When you act as tutor to property for an incapacitated person, you must, among other things, manage their property and ensure that it maintains its value.
This means you must, for example:
- carry out an inventory of the person’s property within 60 days of the establishment of the tutorship and submit the inventory to the tutorship council and the Curateur public (public curator),
- take out insurance or provide other security to protect the incapacitated person’s property, if the value of the latter’s property exceeds $40,000,
- submit an annual account of your management to the tutorship council, the incapacitated person and the Curateur public.
The Curateur public is there to assist you
The Curateur public can help you to fulfill your responsibilities as tutor. Among other things, it can:
- inform you about how to respect your obligations,
- support and accompany you in carrying out your responsibilities,
- provide you with the documentation you need to carry out your duties,
- oversee your actions and administration in collaboration with the tutorship council.
The Curateur public is also responsible for receiving and dealing with reports about situations that may cause harm to a represented person or their property.
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The information presented on this page is not a legal opinion or legal advice. This page explains in a general way the law that applies in Quebec. To obtain a legal opinion or legal advice on your personal situation, consult a legal professional.