QUESTION
My mom is taking care of my child from time to time while i handle family matters do i have to give her joint custody?
Asked on Jul 07th, 2017 on Family Law - New Jersey
More details to this question:
I live in NJ with my parents and my son. My son's father has passed away recently. I had residential custody and the father and I had joint custody. Do I now have sole custody? Also, I am going back and forth from NJ to FL taking care of my sick aunt. My mom and I have a written agreement and a temporary guardianship form notarized/legally bonded in which she takes care of my son while I am not there, Do I need to give her joint custody? or are the notarized papers good enough?
1 ANSWER
Anthony Van Zwaren
Unless there is some formal court order if the father passed away, you have sole custody of the child. You can discuss with an attorney preparing some power of attorney if you need your mother to be able to act on your behalf if the child is in need of medical care, or if the mother needs to get medical records or school records or the like. You could also give your mother joint custody, but that is not something that should be done without a lot of thought since you could find yourself in a custody battle with your mother. If the written agreement has sufficed up until now, I would not recommend going for joint custody without at least consulting with a family law attorney beforehand.
Answered on Jul 08th, 2017 at 10:51 AM