Legal Question in Family Law in Pennsylvania

Re: Mothers' rights to custody

The short answer you don't have more rights.

However, you currently appear from what you have stated, have physical custody, so as far as getting legal custody you have a leg up on your ex.

There are 3 areas that the court will have to address. The first is custody, the standard as to who gets custody, assuming its at issue, is the best interests of the child. The factor that weighs most in your favor is that the child lives with you. Being unfamiliar with how the court in your area weighs other factors it would be hard to say if you would get custody or not, but the burden is on the party that is challenging the current arrangement. The second issue is visitation, if you both agree to the current arrangement the court will not change it. However, if he has her for 3 nights a week that will affect the amount of child support. Under the law child support is owed to the child and you can NOT agree that he doesn't have to pay. Child support is determined by a formula that takes into account the incomes of each parent and takes into accounts how many nights the child spends with the non-custodial parent. Its my experience that even though each of these 3 areas are independent of each other. For example whether he pays support at the court ordered level he still gets visitation. That said if child support is asked for he may want to more vigorously contest the custody and visitation issues. So, be prepared.

Because this area of the law is so fact driven I would need a lot more information before I would even guess how this would play out.

Feel free to contact me if you have more questions or want a further explanation. I don't charge for the initial consultation.

{John}

In

Re: Mothers' rights to custody

You do have a right to child support, even if he has three overnights with the child. It sounds like you already have primary custody, but need to confirm it through the court. I would file a complaint to confirm primary custody, as well as a complaint for child support. Even when things are going well, it is not a bad idea to have a custody order to fall back on.

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