ok my boyfriend and his estranged wife have a 8 yr old lil girl together and neither have had physical custody for most of her life she has been living with her paternal great-grandparents the mother for unknown reasons and my bf for financial reasons the custody situation has not been legalized and now the mother has decided she is the only parent has all legal rights to the child and all say in how the child is raised what i need to know is how we can go about giving guardianship to the great grandparents and if we can do so without dragging the poor child through nasty court battles

There is no "we" in this story. There is only the involved parties and you are not one of them. I know you mean well but it only hurt your BF if you get involved. Without knowing why the child is not living with either parent its not really possible to say what can and cannot happen. It will require a court order though so your BF needs to talk to an Attorney

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Your best advice legal advice does not come from internet message boards, Police, friends, family, your neighbors etc.It comes from an Attorney. Advice given here should not replace legal advice from a qualified Attorney.
Non legal parenting and relationship issues http://www.parentnook.com/forum/

There's the problem. Unless someone actually took legal action, mom is still recognized as the primary custodial parent.



And she's right. Regardless of the reason, if neither dad nor the grandparent have brought any motions before the court AND had those motions granded, then they have nothing to enforce and mom rules supreme. Without court orders to the contrary, mom can simply show up and collect her child.


Guardianships can't be given - they must be ordered by the court - but that doesn't mean that the CHILD needs to be involved in the court proceedings. If the grandparents have been acting as the child's guardians, and assuming that dad is established as the child's LEGAL father, then either the grandparents need to bring a guardianship petition via the courts or dad needs to petition for custody or visitation. But until something officially happens IN COURT, mom is holding the cards here.

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While pointers can be helpful, ultimately the number one lesson in any legal action is: don't take legal advice from books, family, friends, co-workers, police officers, grocery clerks, web sites, or people on legal message boards. The only person who can give YOU legal advice is YOUR attorney.

http://www.aardvarc.org

Have you browsed through the information in LawInfo's Free Legal Resource Center to learn more about your issue yet? See: http://www.lawinfo.com/consumer.html and http://resources.lawinfo.com/en/index.html. You can certainly try to speak to a lawyer to determine what legal options may be available. In the meantime, you may be able to learn more on your own. Search the "Free Legal Resources" tab, or browse the Consumer Resources. Good luck.