Fighting for the ability to stay in your child’s life can be incredibly frustrating and incredibly personal. In many child custody cases, there can be ongoing legal issues that last until the child becomes an adult. If you need help protecting your custody rights or fighting to gain custody rights of your children in Carpinteria, contact an attorney today. The Carpinteria child custody lawyers at The Law Offices of Bamieh and De Smeth represent parents in child custody disputes and work to protect their parental rights. If you are involved in a custody issue or want to fight for sole or joint custody of your kids, call our law offices today for a free consultation and more information about what our attorneys can do to help. Our number is (805) 643-5555.
Awarding Custody and Removing Custody in California
In the majority of cases, California courts and judges prefer to give joint custody. If both parents are willing to be involved in their kids’ lives and want to act as parents, courts usually prefer to allow both parents legal and physical custody rights. In some cases, the court may see circumstances that make them reconsider joint custody. Ultimately, the decision is based on the best interests of the child.
If you are awarded joint physical custody, this often means that there will be some sort of parenting plan that divides who has the children at what times. This could include plans where the parents each get the children for half the year, especially if the parents live close together.
In other cases, the children may stay with one parent throughout most of the year, living with the other on alternating weekends and holidays.
When the court decides who gets legal and physical custody, it looks to a series of factors. Courts want to place the children with the parent who will be there for their children. This means that courts may see a parent working a full-time job as unable to spare the time to raise their children.
Additionally, parents who are not equipped to handle the difficulty of raising a child may steer a court away from giving them equal rights to physical custody.
In some cases, courts may entirely strip a parent of custody. When a parent is stripped of physical custody, they may still have legal custody. This gives them the right to continue making decisions about their child’s upbringing, but they cannot have the child live with them.
Courts may award the right to visitation or supervised visitation to allow the parent time with their children. If the court strips you of legal custody rights, you would lose all legal decision-making and access rights.
Courts are constantly looking out for the best interests of the children in custody cases. That means that things like criminal activity, drug or alcohol abuse, or physical or sexual abuse in the household may lead a court to strip a parent of physical or legal custody rights. Talk to an attorney immediately if your children face abuse or mistreatment from their other parent.
