Legal Question in Family Law in Iowa

Getting gaurdianship of our nephew

Our nephew is 14 and would like to come live with us. He has past issues of abuse and neglect from his mother and actually the children have been taken away from her twice before.

We are seeking advice on what steps we could take to place him in our care so he could live out the rest of his teen years in a happy kid friendly environment and hopefully build his self esteem in the process.

I had placed a few phone calls today and was told one option would be to file for guardianship through the court. This could be somewhat costly as they quoted us a ballpark figure of $1000 plus and in the end we may not even win custody of him if the judge doesn't see reason to do so.

We had also considered our first step to be is approaching her and letting her know of his desire to live with us and if there were some form she could sign away her rights to us? Or give us legal guardianship? Is there such a form available for cases like that? And thats just a hunch as we don't know if she would even allow this to happen.

What to do? Where to start? And how to approach a woman who is a time bomb - you never know what will happen or how bad it will be.


Asked on 7/17/07, 1:40 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Robert Luedeman solo practitioner

Re: Getting gaurdianship of our nephew

It is said that all roads lead to Rome. In this case, all roads go through the biological mother because she gets the say so. She might consent to a guardianship, she might not. There is no form such as you suggest.

Read more
Answered on 7/17/07, 2:45 pm


Related Questions & Answers

More Family Law, Divorce, Child Custody and Adoption questions and answers in Iowa