Custodial parent facing eviction

[treici]

DH is the NCP, kids are currently with us for his summer parenting time.  Current order is joint legal/joint physical.  They are due to return to the BM's house mid-August.  

Her boyfriend is due in court tomorrow for a hearing Re: Rent and Possession (eviction hearing).  BM is not a party to the case as it seems her name and her 3 children (two are DH's, one is her now ex-husband's) are not on the lease agreement.  We do not believe that the boyfriend will show up at the court hearing as he has an outstanding warrant (failed to appear at traffic court).  

If the landlord receives a judgment for rent and possession, do we have sufficient grounds to ask the court for temporary custody?  We do have an attorney already as DH just finished with a modification in May.  She has been made aware of the situation.  

BM lives in MO, we are in FL.
 

[socrateaser]

>If the landlord receives a judgment for rent and possession,
>do we have sufficient grounds to ask the court for temporary
>custody?  We do have an attorney already as DH just finished
>with a modification in May.  She has been made aware of the
>situation.  

Maybe. Wait until it's less than a week before you must return the children and then, if mother's living situation is still in crisis, then I would file for emergency temporary custody in FL, on grounds that you fear sending the children back will place them at risk, due to the mother's lack of reasonable housing.

[treici]

we would look to handle it in FL rather than MO?  

The only reason we had hoped to file anything sooner is because school starts here on Aug. 3rd and we would prefer to have them start school on time if need be.  They are supposed to go one week before school starts based on the current order.  School starts there on the 22nd so they should be flying the 15th and BM is required to get the tickets to us 2 weeks prior therefore the 1st.  

Thanks for all your help, Soc!

[socrateaser]

>we would look to handle it in FL rather than MO?  

Ordinarily, FL wouldn't have jurisdiction, but if the basis of your case is that the children will be subject to mistreatment or abuse if you send them back to MO, then you could get a temp order in FL. You could also get a temp. order in MO, if that's where your attorney is located.

Mistreatment could reasonably extend to conditions such as being subjected to living on the street.

You could file sooner (but only in MO), on grounds that the children are likely to suffer irreparable harm if they are not permitted to stay with you, because their schooling will be impaired, but your case is not nearly as strong, until the mother is actually evicted and living on a friend's sofa, or in a shelter, etc.

Of course, there's a double-edged sword here -- the court may determine that the solution to the mother's housing problem is to order you to pay more child support. I can't say what the odds of this happening are, without knowing everything about your respective financial situations, and the current support orders. But, this is a possibility, if you have the ability to pay more.

[treici]

DH is the NCP, kids are currently with us for his summer parenting time.  Current order is joint legal/joint physical.  They are due to return to the BM's house mid-August.  

Her boyfriend is due in court tomorrow for a hearing Re: Rent and Possession (eviction hearing).  BM is not a party to the case as it seems her name and her 3 children (two are DH's, one is her now ex-husband's) are not on the lease agreement.  We do not believe that the boyfriend will show up at the court hearing as he has an outstanding warrant (failed to appear at traffic court).  

If the landlord receives a judgment for rent and possession, do we have sufficient grounds to ask the court for temporary custody?  We do have an attorney already as DH just finished with a modification in May.  She has been made aware of the situation.  

BM lives in MO, we are in FL.
 

[socrateaser]

>If the landlord receives a judgment for rent and possession,
>do we have sufficient grounds to ask the court for temporary
>custody?  We do have an attorney already as DH just finished
>with a modification in May.  She has been made aware of the
>situation.  

Maybe. Wait until it's less than a week before you must return the children and then, if mother's living situation is still in crisis, then I would file for emergency temporary custody in FL, on grounds that you fear sending the children back will place them at risk, due to the mother's lack of reasonable housing.

[treici]

we would look to handle it in FL rather than MO?  

The only reason we had hoped to file anything sooner is because school starts here on Aug. 3rd and we would prefer to have them start school on time if need be.  They are supposed to go one week before school starts based on the current order.  School starts there on the 22nd so they should be flying the 15th and BM is required to get the tickets to us 2 weeks prior therefore the 1st.  

Thanks for all your help, Soc!

[socrateaser]

>we would look to handle it in FL rather than MO?  

Ordinarily, FL wouldn't have jurisdiction, but if the basis of your case is that the children will be subject to mistreatment or abuse if you send them back to MO, then you could get a temp order in FL. You could also get a temp. order in MO, if that's where your attorney is located.

Mistreatment could reasonably extend to conditions such as being subjected to living on the street.

You could file sooner (but only in MO), on grounds that the children are likely to suffer irreparable harm if they are not permitted to stay with you, because their schooling will be impaired, but your case is not nearly as strong, until the mother is actually evicted and living on a friend's sofa, or in a shelter, etc.

Of course, there's a double-edged sword here -- the court may determine that the solution to the mother's housing problem is to order you to pay more child support. I can't say what the odds of this happening are, without knowing everything about your respective financial situations, and the current support orders. But, this is a possibility, if you have the ability to pay more.

[Luving StepMom]

We've been in this situation... my stepson's mom has been evicted from her last 4 homes. But since the mother always had a place to live (with friends or another place) it didn't get us anywhere in court. Even though we tried to show the instability was not good for the child, since he wasn't showing any SIGNS of being affected then it didn't matter. I'm not trying to shoot your hopes down but I wanted to share...  if you filed for custody I'm sure she would find a different place to live and then you're back at square one.  Good luck to you though. :)

[treici]

The BM has moved mulitple times since DH and I have gotten married almost 5 years ago(two moves across state lines).  She also has remarried and divorced in that same time period.  She was living with this new boyfrined before her divorce was finalized(even with a child involved the divorce only took 7 months from filing).

The younger skid is not showing the effects in her school work but seems effected emotionally(difficult to prove since we are in a diferent state and don't have the opportunity to take her to counseling), the older however, is continually doing worse in school.  We still don't know at this point whether he will be going to 8th grade or not.  Since their last move was near the end of the 3rd grading period, he got an unfair boost in grades which may have put him jsut high enough to squeak by again.  This has been common over the last 4 years.  

We will most likely continue to wait and watch.