Legal Question in Family Law in Iowa

Re: Guardianship Procedure

The child's grandparents must serve you personally with the date, time and location of the hearing. If they are unable to personally serve you, they can get an order from the court which allows them to publish service in a newspaper. Your great fear is that they will conduct the legal procedure without your knowledge. I suggest that you write to them and/or their attorney and offer to sign a Notice of Acknowledgement of Service to be sure that you are included in the proceedings.

The next issue is whether you want to allow the grandparents to be the guardians. If you do not, you will have to go court and give the Iowa judge cause to believe that you will be able to take care of your children in a reasonable time. In case the Iowa judge decides to grant guardianship to the grandparents be sure to give the judge a schedule of visitation which you can comply with, for example, visits during holidays.

If the judge grants the grandparents petition for guardianship you can come back later with a request for termination of guardianship upon proof that you are ready, willing and able to care for your children.

In view of the fact that your children are 14 and will soon be 18, with the rights of adults to visit you or not, you may want to cooperate with the present situation and show your children the value of cooperation as well as gaining the benefits of being a welcome visitor during the next four years.

The greatest lesson of adulthood is learning to get along in difficult situations. You might decide that your best gift to your children as their mother is to demonstrate this difficult, but essential lesson.

Re: Guardianship Procedure

They will have to file a petition in district court to establish a guardianship and you must be served notice. They cannot accomplish this ex parte. It will be difficult for them to accomplish what they want if you are capable of caring for your daughter and wish to retain the status quo.

I suggest that you hire local counsel and discuss your options with them, as long distance litigation can be expensive even though lawyer fees here are considerably less than they are in California. You will need to be able to respond rapidly and vigorously if they do file a petition. You did not say what the child's county of residence is, and this is important.