My son has custody of his 12 yr.old daughter.they have lived in my home with me since she was born.her mom has visitation and she does pay child support.my son has always depended on my husband and I to help him raise her and to help fiancially,which was no problem.my son married 5 yrs.ago and his daughter didn't want to leave to go with him.so he moved out .he very rarely gave any help in her support.my husband passed away 3 yrs.ago and he still want help me support her.he said if I tried to get child support he would make her live with him.is therre anything I can do legally.I live in Georgia.

You can collect child support from both the mother and the father. Do you presently have guardianship of your granddaughter? If not, you need to consult with an attorney to get this accomplished prior to going after the son for his part of the child support. Once you have the guardianship matter settled he cannot just demand that she go live with him as he does not want to pay child support to you.

Can I get legal guardianship from him and her mom?he sees his daughter once in 4 months and his new wife says they won't give me any money to help with her.maybe once a year they might spend 150.00 for school clothes and sometimes they pay for her lunch and that's all the help I can get from him.her mom knows she lives here with me and she's fine with it.does she have to be a certain age before I can get guardianship?

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Originally Posted by bunny12

can i get legal guardianship from him and her mom?he sees his daughter once in 4 months and his new wife says they won't give me any money to help with her.maybe once a year they might spend 150.00 for school clothes and sometimes they pay for her lunch and that's all the help i can get from him.her mom knows she lives here with me and she's fine with it.does she have to be a certain age before i can get guardianship?

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You can get guardianship at any age. Get into court ASAP. As for his wife saying they won't pay... lets see what a judge says about that (he will pay or risk going to jail)

First, please pay more attention to posting guidelines. The Children forum (where this was originally posted) has a Read First sticky that directs questions of a legal nature to this forum.

Second, your original post is confusing. If I'm following you, your son and his daughter moved in with you when she was born. Five years ago he married and moved out leaving his daughter with you. But he still has custody. The mother continues to pay support (to whom?).

Now, you would like to get your son to contribute to the support of the child. Is that the situation?

If so, you will first need to go to court to obtain legal guardianship or custody of the child. You will need to prove that your son has not maintained a relationship with the child. There is also the mother to consider, because she would have first dibs if custody was taken away from the father.

I strongly suggest hiring an attorney to help you deal with this.