Legal Question in Family Law in North Carolina
Giving my brother guardianship of my teenage son.
My 16 year old, sophmore son is struggling in a big city schools, and has requested to go and live with my brother and sister-in-law in rural North Carolina. To register him in schools they need guardianship. How do I go about doing this so that I am the one responsible for his health/life insurance (mine is better than my brother's)? I sort of want to have joint custody where I'm responsible for his benefits and have visitation on school holidays. Can I do this were social services won't get involved and take him away from his parents? All involved feel this is in the best interest of my son.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Giving my brother guardianship of my teenage son.
Unless social services is already involved for some reason you haven't mentioned, there is no reason they should become involved in a consensual transfer of guardianship. Maryland law provides for a joint guardianship, which means a grant of limited guardianship to a caregiver who may be given authority to consent to medical care and to make educational and other decisions for the child which would otherwise be made by a parent. The parent would retain substantial authority and rights, and it could be a revocable joint guardianship. An attorney can prepare the necessary papers to be filed with the court to obtain a court-ordered joint guardianship. You should be able to retain the responsibility for health and life insurance and whatever shared custody or visitation rights you want.