Gaining Custody

[tinandchic]

My father has custody of my son. I did this 6 yrs ago voluntarily due to my own troubles. This was done with the agreement he would return custody to me once I got settled and stable. I have been in my own place for 3 yrs( where my son has his own room), same job for 4 yrs. I am recently married to a girl my son call's mom. My father will not turn over custody to me. Is there anything I can do? I have spoken to a cpl lawyers who say this is a very diff case then a couple who was married. My son is getting older and the longer he is with them and not us they are giving him false information and I know he is going to start hating me because of them. The mother is not in the picture at all. Any information would be of great help to us. Thank you

[calvinhildreth]

Your son has been with your dad for 6 years and you agreed to this arrangement?  My first impression is that yes, this will be difficult for you.  One factor, I am sure, is why you agreed to let your father have custody of your child in the first place.  If it had anything to do with a conviction and/or prison time, your job just got harder.  Every jurisdiction has different rules as to father's rights and grandparents rights.  Was this an agreed entry situation that started out of court or was there an initial complaint filed and you settled on dad taking the child?  I think we will be able to help more if we knew what state's laws apply to you and more of how your dad or the court of law got involved in the first place.

As for the fact that you have a stable residents and the same job for years... this helps you for sure.  Any court will look at that as stability which will be important towards determining if you are in the child's best interest.  Keep that up.

Here are some key questions you will want to have the answers to:  How much time does the child spend with you now?  How old is the child?  Is the time spent between the two of you consistant and often?  If it is not, were you ever completely unavailable for the child for an extended period of time?  What was the disposition in the matter of your visitation rights with the child in this agreement?  If you were denied visitation with the child as part of this arrangement, you first might want to establish visitation on paper to be able to improve the relationship between you and your child first.  Once there is a new track record of the two of you together without problems on a visitation level, you should then be able to move further to obtain custody much easier.

By the way, I am assuming that you did not get this "agreement" with your father in writing?  If not, this too makes things more difficult.  Remember from now on to get important things such as this in writing, for it is likely you will thank yourself later for it.

Bottom line, any court will look at the best interest of the child first.  If your son is doing fine at your fathers and has been with him so long, you will have quite a time shaking this situation loose... period.  Don't give up however... doing nothing is worse than any failed attempt you could ever make.

[gemini3]

Any time you ask the court to make a change in custody they are going to look at whether or not there has been a "material change in circumstance" - and it has to be one that is having a negative affect on the child.  The reason for this is that they believe changing custody is traumatic and disruptive for the child, and don't think that it should be done unless the child is being negatively impacted because of their current situation.

So they will want to know if your child is doing well.  Is he happy, doing well in school, etc.  If he is, it will be very hard for you to get custody.