What Determines Child Custody?
If you are looking into the Utah laws for child custody at this time, then you probably are dealing with child custody lawyers in Utah. You are hopefully working with people that can tell you about how the situation works in Utah at this time. What Heber family law attorneys may tell you is that child custody is determined on a case-by-case basis depending entirely on what the court believes is the best situation to put the child in given what the parents are able to provide for that child. If the court rules that one parent is more suitable to be the primary guardian of the child, then that is how the court will authorize the child custody situation to go forward.
What Factors Can Affect Custody?
Many people huddle with their child custody lawyers in Heber Utah to try to determine what factors affect custody and what they might be able to do about getting their children into the right hands as far as making sure they are the one who ultimately gets the children. What those Heber child custody attorneys will likely tell their clients is that a few of the following factors are used by the courts to determine which parent will ultimately be considered the primary guardian:
- The financial situation of each parent
- The ability of each parent to provide for the child
- The health history of each parent
- The mental well-being of each parent
- Any prior convictions of crimes by each parent
The court has to weigh all of these factors to make its determination about which parent seems most able to handle the responsibility of taking care of the children. The court does not take this responsibility lightly, and you can expect that the court will deliberate for as long as it deems necessary in order to come up with a solution that it believes will work best for the children.
What Types Of Custody Are In Utah?
There are several types of custody available in Utah to those who seek out Heber family lawyers who can potentially help them with these cases. A few of the custody types that you should know about include:
Sole legal custody – This is when Heber divorce attorneys have won the sole custody of the child or children for one parent over the other. This is the goal that most parents have when they seek out an attorney, but it is not always the result that they end up with.
Joint legal custody – This is the more likely outcome of any child custody case as the courts recognize that it is healthiest for the child or children to remain in good standing with both of their parents as much as possible.
Split custody – This is when the court rules that the best interests of the children are best served living in separate households. This type of ruling is rare, but it is something that may happen in certain families.
There are situations when a custody ruling by a court may be modified. In fact, you should immediately reach out to the Gordon Law Group if you feel that the ruling made by a court was unfair in your case. It often happens that people can work with their attorney to try to get a ruling modified based on new information that they come up with following a ruling by the court. Remember, it is possible that the court did not have all of the details that it needed to have before making a ruling. If that is the case, then it is up to those involved to make sure they steer the court in the right direction so it doesn’t put out an improper ruling that doesn’t work out well for anyone.
