Legal Question in Family Law in Texas

I live in the state of Texas and my ex-wife lives in Oklahoma. We have a 16 year old daughter that lives with my wife in Oklahoma. Our daughter will be 17 in November of this year. In the divorce settlement we were assigned shared custody of our kids. My daughter is out of control. She has 2 children of her own and is currently living with her boyfriends family. She has not been living with her mother for over a month. My question is what legal right do I have to go get her and bring her back to Texas to live with me and get full custody. Also am I legally obligated to continue sending child support payments to my ex-wife or should I send them to the family that she is currently living with?

Thank You,

Frank Norwood


Asked on 9/19/09, 9:05 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Mark Dunn Mark D. Dunn

If you filed a motion for modification to change custody, by the time it got to trial, your daughter would probably be 18 years old, and the case would be moot.

And depending on how long they've lived in Oklahoma, the case would end up in Oklahoma, not Texas, so that you'd be litigating long distance.

As for the child support payments, you should go by what the order specifically tells you to do, which is (probably) to send the money to a registry, or send it directly to Mom. Read the order.

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Answered on 9/25/09, 10:30 am


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