TX family law

If you live with your grandmother for at least 6 months without either parent living at grandmom's address, grandma has "standing" to ask the court to allow her to become your primary conservator.

In Texas, you probably want to be in family court. Therefore, the term "guardian" would not be used.

If both parents agree to grandma having primary custody and they will sign legal papers, the judge can order grandma to be primary conservator of you. Then if the parents want to change later, they would have to go back to see the same judge to get the court order modified.

If everyone agrees, it's a quick process. No waiting time. The Harris County filing fee is under $300. Then you would have to pay to have an attorney prepare the paperwork. My normal flat-rate for a case without any arguments or "glitches" is $750. Therefore, the entire case would cost approx. $1,000.

In an ideal world, the case could be started and completed in less than a week. However, if people refuse to cooperate or sign, you are looking at several thousand dollars and months to get a contested case finalized.

Good luck!

Fran Brochstein
www.familylaw4u.com
713-847-6000

Questioner,

I'm sorry to hear about your domestic situation.

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is as follows: Your grandmother can file a Suit Affecting the Parent Child Relationship (SAPCR) and ask to be determined your legal guardian. If both your parents agree to the SAPCR and it is uncontested, it should be over fairly quickly. If contested by your parents, your grandmother will have to prove why being your legal guardian would be in your best interest.

Your grandmother can do it, but I would highly recommend a family law attorney for this case.

Good luck.

Fran,

Just a follow up - I intentionally used the term "legal guardian" as to not to confuse the 13 year old questioner with terms like "managing conservator."

I would like to jump in here and make a comment or two on this one. First of all, I am not a lawyer — but I have been in and out of the family court system for over 15 years. So, I think I know my way around a bit… There is really no short answer here and you are dancing to a difficult song. There are really two main ways to accomplish the goal here — by agreement or by judgment. Your biological parents have rights — until the court feels that they are no longer qualified. And, being a bad parent (like grounding you all the time and stuff like that) is not a crime. That does not mean that you have to prove them to be terrible parents in order to improve your life and I feel strongly that you have a good start by getting them to agree for you to stay at your grandmothers. However, I will say this — anger issues are something that any reasonable judge will look into. In other words — if your Dad has a history of anger issues — then it is likely that he may have been arrested (or at least had the cops called) for incidents of personal or domestic concern. On the other side, your Mom’s money issues will not be a factor until it reaches a point where she can’t provide the basics — Roof over your head, clothes, food and basic utilities — like water. What I’m saying here is that you really have to be on some rough times to change custodial guardianship to the grandparents — and even if you do — once your Mom and Dad get back on their feet and leveled off, they can still fight to get you back.
What you should do is talk to your grandmother about your wishes. See if your grandmother has some way to get this ‘agreement’ in writing about you staying there. That will be very important later. She can use a variety of reasons — like school registrations for example. Then find a local family lawyer to work with your grandmother. This lawyer will likely look to assign a Guardian Ad Litem (which is a child’s lawyer just for you) and together they will request that all parties undergo an evaluation.
Simply sparking that off will put both your parents on notice and let them know that you’re serious and at the same time protect you and grandma. An evaluation consists of basic interviews and reviews. Nothing too major — however, when the review is over (and this is the good part) there will be a report generated and given to the judge. The judge will review this and make a decision based on YOUR best interests. That being said, you also need to know that at your age, you may be allowed to speak your wished to the judge (even though you are under 18) — but keep in mind that the judge is not required to base his decision solely on your wishes — he must review the evaluation report and base his decision by majority on that. Judges in the family court system have an obligation to act in the best interest of the child, so if the situation is bad enough, or if your grandmother offers a better life for you then I would expect the decision to go that way.
Hopefully, your parents can simply just agree to let your grandmother be your legal guardian and sign the agreements for that. Your grandmother will need to have the family lawyer draw up the papers and then it’s done. Good luck kid. :-| I say a little prayer for ya. Just the fact that you have reached out to a site like this - which is for adults shows that your really looking for answers.