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StephInSC · Dec 20, 2011, 07:13 PM

My younger sister is 13. Her mother died when she was six and my (our) father had custody of her. He passed away in January of 2011 and left her in the care of his neighbors. I no longer get to see her and she now acts as if that is her only family, which breaks my heart. I have wanted custody of her since before his death. Is there anything I can do since I am a biological relative and, obviously the neighbors are not.

ScottGem · Dec 20, 2011, 07:23 PM

How old are you? How did the neighbors get custody in the first place? Why won't they let you see her? Why didn't you try to get custody last January

Without a court order the neighbors have no right to her.

Fr_Chuck · Dec 20, 2011, 08:17 PM

A child is not someone a person "leaves" to someone like property. So when the father died did the neighbors go to court and get custody ? For your sister to be there legally they would have had to.

How long ago was this ? How old are you ? We need to know more to answer this

StephInSC · Dec 20, 2011, 10:19 PM

I'm 30. My father passed away and the neighbors had her in physical custody. I tried to get police to escort me onto the property to get her, but was told that since I'm in a neighboring county and she isn't being abused or neglected as far as they can tell then they couldn't do anything. Also child protective services said they had visited the home and saw no reason to remove her. I was told the biological parent had made a decision and that as long as a biological parent leaves a child where they aren't abused then on SC the parents wish is honored. I'm basically not allowed to see her because we don't see eye to eye on things (they're very religious and need to control her environment at all times to protect her from things not religion based, I guess I'm included). This didn't seem right to me and I wasn't sure what legally had to be in place, because what I've been told didn't seem right. I was hoping after she lived there for awhile she would see things aren't perfect there and make her own drcision without her being forced, but the situation is not improving. Thanks for any help and I hope this clears some things up.

Fr_Chuck · Dec 20, 2011, 10:47 PM

You hire an attorney and file for custody in court, at this point there appears to be no legal custody, and they have no legal standing other than dads wishes which are not binding.

The police do not act in these cases unless you have a court order for custody

ScottGem · Dec 21, 2011, 04:12 AM

As Chuck said, I can understand the police not acting under the possession is 9/10ths of the law doctrine. But it appears SC authorities just don't want to upset the applecart and feel that doing nothing as long as the child is not in harms way, is better than following the law.

A similar discussion is going on in this thread:
https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/family...ds-619965.html. You might want to take a look at it, especially post #8 which quotes from this site: Child Custody & Death | LIVESTRONG.COM.

I believe the law is on your side, but you need to get a court to rule on the law. What's worse, is the longer you wait, the harder it will be since the court may use its best interests of the child doctrine to go against the letter of the law. So I would start shopping around for a lawyer today.