Can it be reimbursed?

• Britney Spears pays fees to people who she believes acted against her will within the framework of her guardianship.
• Now that she has a new lawyer, she can try to get some of that money back.
• But it will be difficult to convince the judge that his father must be overtaxed.
• Visit the Insider homepage for more stories.

In the 13 years that Britney Spears has been in wardship, she has paid costs to everyone involved – even the people she says are acting against her will.

Although she has described her father, Jamie, as abusing her guardianship, Spears is the one who pays her monthly fees to manage her finances. She also pays her father’s legal fees, as well as the security costs her father and lawyers incurred as a result of the publicity for her case.

This type of financial arrangement is normal in the world of guardianship, which is typically used in cases where a person is mentally disabled – such as people with severe disabilities or with mental health issues – and cannot take care of themselves. -even.

Spears has paid his father more than $ 5 million from his estate since starting his guardianship, plus hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and other expenses, according to a Forbes analysis. Jamie Spears also arranged to get a percentage of the income from his daughter’s ticket and merchandise sales, according to Forbes.

Legal experts say the pop star can get some of that money back if she oust her father as her financial conservator or end guardianship altogether – but it will be an uphill battle.

“The law is put in place to allow conservatives to receive reasonable compensation and pay reasonable expenses, including attorney fees,” Andy Mayoras, trust and estate lawyer and in-depth commentator, told Insider on legal disputes between celebrities. “For all of this money to be recovered, there would have to be some kind of bad faith or some sort of nefarious motive or material breach of fiduciary duty, which would be unlikely.”

It’s hard to prove Jamie Spears spent money irresponsibly

Mathew Rosengart – Britney Spears’ new attorney – will likely try to prove Jamie Spears behaved irresponsibly with his daughter’s money in order to remove him from his role as curator, legal experts say.

Rosengart now has the possibility of drawing on the finances of the tutorship. He will be able to review segments of Jamie Spears’ disclosures that have been redacted from public documents, and he will have subpoena power for further documentation.

If Rosengart can persuade the judge that Spears breached his fiduciary duty, he can also ask the judge to overburden Spears for any mis-spent funds, according to Sabino Biondi, an estate and trust lawyer at Wilk Auslander LLP. Spears is entitled to certain charges as established by California law, but nothing beyond that, Biondi said.

“If he decides to take funds that have nothing to do with his compensation, no, that’s not allowed. It’s called self-operation,” Biondi told Insider. “You can’t just write yourself a check and say, ‘Well, that’s my compensation.'”

AP Photo / Chris Pizzello

But Rosengart will struggle to find evidence of self-operation, Mayoras said.

Spears has previously filed annual public reports on her daughter’s expenses. Judge Brenda Penny, who oversees trusteeship litigation, has so far not objected to anything in those reports.

“Yes, Britney’s lawyer will comb through,” Mayoras said. “And if there is any improper spending, including how much money he pays himself, these lawyers will use it as ammunition to try to change things. But that in itself will not be a way to end it. . “

Rosengart might not be able to convince the judge that Jamie Spears was complicit in wrongdoing, even if he finds the expenses questionable, Sabino said.

For example, Spears spent $ 900,000 on lawyers for four months of work between October 2020 and February 2021, including up to $ 900 per hour for crisis PR officers. He could still repay the estate, arguing that he didn’t know any better and that the mind-boggling expenses did not meet the legal threshold of flagrant breach of fiduciary duty.

“Yes, the Tories can be overtaxed, but that doesn’t mean that if they are removed from office, and if there is no egregious act on their part, the payments will be canceled,” Biondo said.