Utah Child Custody Legal Questions

So long as a noncustodial parent is ordered to pay child support?even if the parent from his order to pay the support does not have the child living with him/her?that noncustodial parent is under a legal duty to pay child support and can be held in contempt of court and sanctioned for noncompliance with the court order. This does not mean, however, that the noncustodial parent must suffer such circumstances without recourse. If you are the noncustodial parent and know that your child is not living with the parent to whom you are ordered to pay child support, that would be grounds for seeking a modification of the child support award. You can go to court, allege that the child is not living with the child support recipient, and argue that you should be relieved of the obligation to pay child support to that parent. This does not mean that you will be relieved of paying child support completely. The court will likely ask with whom the child is residing and then ask that person if he or she desires to receive child support assistance. It may even be possible for the court to award the child support directly to the child if he or she is living away from either parent independently and on his own.... Read More

You have not provided enough information so that I can provide you with a useful response. If you and your mother reached an agreement between yourselves, without a court order being issued in the process, then it's a simple matter of you simply taking custody of your child back with or without your mother's agreement. If you and your mother made a guardianship arrangement through a court, then you and your mother need to terminate the guardianship arrangement.... Read More

Depending on what type of "temporary" custody your mother has, she may be able to simply let the matter expire, or she may need to file something with the court or obtain an order terminating the custody arrangement. If your mother had an attorney help her, she could contact them for advice.... Read More

Child support ends when the child is 18 and out of high school. If Child Support Services is involved you should call them and ask that any payments since 18 and out of high school be applied to arrears. There is no pro vision in California code to require paying for a child to go to college.... Read More

You need to review the terms of the decree or support order. If your payments terminated when the child turned 18 or 19, you should take an official copy of the decree or support order to the social security administration and request that the payments stop. If there are any child support arrears that have accrued since the entry of the support order, the SSA may be able to collect benefits from your disability checks and forward them to your former spouse or to a government entity to apply toward the amounts owed for past child support.... Read More

You will want to make sure that the divorce court in Utah shows that there is another child born to you which is not a child of the marriage. You can go to the Bureau of Vital Statistics in the state where the child was born and either apply for a birth certificate, if one has not been issued, or to amend a birth record, if a birth certificate has already been issued. You and the father can sign an affidavit with the information necessary to have a birth certificate issued or to amend a birth record. If your husband is claiming to be the father of the child, you will need to contest that in the divorce and ask the court for paternity testing to establish that your husband is not the father of the child in question, and that your boyfriend is the biological father.... Read More

What you want will require a sacrifice of some kind on your part. If you think you cannot afford a lawyer, then either find a free (but competent) lawyer or finish your divorce yourself. If you think you are not capable of doing it yourself and doing it correctly, then you either dig down deep and find a way to pay for a lawyer (even a creative way, such as paying in trade, etc.) or you don't get divorced. Something's got to give if you're going to get divorced, or you just don't get divorced. It's that simple.... Read More

Send them a notice that you are terminating the power of attorney and if they don't return her immediately, you are going to file a kidnapping charge against them. If they are smart, they will petition for guardianship and the court can work out the details when you object. In the great scheme of things, your daughter will need some time to be integrated into your family and it would be better if your parents worked with you to do that.... Read More