Child custody

[leahmom]

My husband is in the process of filing for custody of his son from his maternal grandmother and is waiting on the paternity test results to come back. The grandmother has been the "primary caregiver" for the past two years and has denied my husband access of his son. My question is once paternity is established, should he file for visitation/joint legal first to reestablish a relationship or should he just file for sole custody? What are his chances?

 

[Duranie]

How old is the child? If the child does not know him, it is unlikely he will get custody right off the bat. It is probably there will be supoervised visitation at first, then he can gradually ask for unsupervised.

Does he have an attorney? What does he/she say? If he is the boys father he eventually should get custody over the grandma.

 

[leahmom]

Thank you for replying! His son is 11 years old. The mother agreed to give custody to her parents without notifying my husband two years ago 2004. My husband has had no contact with him since. (Long story). Should he just settle for visitation for now and then file for custody later?

 

[Duranie]

That is more of a question he should ask his attorney.

If paternity was not established, then technically he had no rights to the child (I assume they were never married?). So mom really was not obligated to give him the child, unfortunately.