The law presumes that adults are competent. In a sense, "competency" is a synonym for "autonomy." A competent adult is free to use or dispose of his or her property in whatever manner he or she sees fit—subject to certain constraints which we won't go into right now.
A person is "incompetent" if, as the statute says, he or she is
...so mentally impaired as a result of a mental or physical illness or disability, or mental retardation, or as a result of chronic substance abuse, that the person is incapable of taking proper care of the person's self or property or fails to provide for the person's family or other persons for whom the person is charged by law to provide....An incompetent person is legally unable to act for themselves. Unless he or she has appointed an agent under a durable power of attorney or placed property in trust, it will be necessary to appoint a guardian to manage the individual's property. Guardians have most of the same powers over property as their ward would have if competent, but everything the guardian does is subject to court approval in advance.
The guardianship statutes explicitly state that the guardian cannot make or change a will, and the courts interpret that to prohibit the guardian from making any kind of change to a trust or other estate planning arrangements. A guardian can obtain authority to make lifetime gifts, but only if the court finds that the ward would have wanted to make the gift if competent.
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