Rights of Father for Visitation; resides in separate state

Mother and child live in MS- Father resides in Texas. Father has not established paternity via court but child is named after father. Parents originally agreed to share the child equally on two months stretch. Mother revokes on her end as she pleases for any reason she sees fit; most often and recently because of fathers involvement with his girlfriend. What state laws would apply in situation? What rights, if any, does father have? How does father go about getting visitation or joint custody of child?

Dad needs to establish legal paternity and then file where Mom lives, for an enforceable visitation schedule.

Quick question though - how old is this child?

If the presumed Father has not been established as legal Father then he has no rights as he legally has no child. He or Mom must then go to court to establish paternity through paternity test. However this also means Dad is not obligated to pay Mom any monies for suppor tof this child either. In addition if Mom ever seeks State aid (welfare, food stamps medical etc) the State will want to know who Father is so they can seek repayment from him. If this happens the door is open for visitation, custody etc

Thanks everyone. The child in question is 3, soon to be 4

Where I see the importance of age at this point its moot until Dad or Mom takes some action that results in paternity being established

LBarnett1908 said:

Mother and child live in MS- Father resides in Texas. Father has not established paternity via court but child is named after father. Parents originally agreed to share the child equally. What state laws would apply in situation? What rights, if any, does father have? How does father go about getting visitation or joint custody of child?

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Any agreement unapproved by a court is irrelevant.

Paternity must be established via DNA testing, the child's name notwithstanding.

Mississippi law applies, because that is mom and her child's domicile and residence.

Dad would need to establish paternity, petition a MS court to start the process, be prepared to pay child support, which could mean retroactive payments, (arrearages could apply), request visitation, be prepared to travel to the child initially, perhaps, paying transportation costs eventually. Child is too small to be allowed to travel alone to visit dad today. Dad will have to travel to the chid, and hopefully one day to be allowed to take the chid to TX and return the child to MS. This is all in addition to ongoing court ordered child support.

Dad might wish to discuss HIS rights and obligations with a MS attorney. You might not need one for everything, but buying an hour f a MS attorney's time could prove beneficial in avoiding a fleecing down the line. everyone needs to know their rights.

MS has a state sponsored program for establishing paternity it is called ASAP, and has no or low costs to the dad for establishing paternity. Read about it here:

http://www.mdhs.state.ms.us/cse_asap.html




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