Orders related to a protected person’s Roth IRA; Conservator’s fiduciary duties; MCL 700.5416; MCL 700.1214; Probate court authority to remedy breach of fiduciary duties; MCL 700.1308; Voidable self-dealing transactions; MCL 700.5421(1); Probate court’s authority to change a beneficiary; MCL 700.5407(3); Disallowance of conservator accounts; MCL 700.5418(1); Failure to submit a claim for reimbursement to the probate court; Delay in mailing an order denying a motion for reconsideration; Harmless error; Credibility findings; Moot claims as to removal of a conservator

In these consolidated appeals, the court held that appellant-former conservator’s (Jonathan) challenges to the probate court’s orders removing him as conservator for his parents were moot given the parents’ deaths. As to his claim that false testimony was presented at a hearing, the court saw no reason to disturb the probate court’s credibility findings. It also found no reversible error in the probate court’s orders concerning the late father’s (EJS) Roth IRA, or in the probate court’s disallowance of Jonathan’s accounts. The appeals arose from siblings’ “division over the care of their elderly (and now-deceased) parents”—EJS and ELS. As to Jonathan’s issues related to the probate court’s orders concerning EJS’s Roth IRA, the record reflected “that Jonathan, a month before he was removed as conservator, moved $175,000 from EJS’s Roth IRA to an investment account he and ELS jointly owned; that the Roth IRA listed Jonathan as the sole beneficiary; and that no reliable information regarding when beneficiary designations for the Roth IRA were made or changed had been provided by Jonathan or the financial institution.” The court determined that, consistent with MCL 700.1214 and 700.1308(1)(i), the probate court’s 8/24/23 “order remedied any potential self-dealing by voiding any beneficiary designations changed by Jonathan to himself during his time as EJS’s conservator.” He did not identify, and the court saw, no “basis to conclude that any such act was exempt from voidability under MCL 700.5421(1).” As to the probate court’s 8/28/23 order, it “was authorized under MCL 700.5407(3) to change a beneficiary designation made prior to Jonathan’s time as EJS’s conservator.” Notice was given and a hearing was conducted. The court found it clear from the record that the probate “court rendered its decision after it was satisfied that changing the beneficiary designation was in EJS’s best interests and was consistent with EJS’s express wish that his assets be used for ELS’s benefit.” As to the probate court’s disallowance of Jonathan’s accounts, the record showed it did so not as a sanction, but because they were never filed with the probate court as required under “MCL 700.5418(1), and because the copies of the accounts given to other parties were wholly inadequate.” Affirmed.