Does the father of a child have rights to come and get child if custody has not been established

I suggest that you have paternity test done on both children then go to the District Attorneys office(your child support agency )and file for shared custody/visitation as what is in the best interest of both children. I would be concerned in allowing him to take the child without paternity or custody/visitation established. Unless you can trust that he will return her to you.

Fist i would suggest hat you go to the court house and file a stiplation, finding of fact, conclusion of law and judgmetn of paternity with the court. this will then send you to mediation. mediator will sit down with both of you and work out a plan to allow you to set periods of physical placement (when you have her and when he has her). This allows you to be able to file comtempt of court if he breaks the agreement. it also allows you to set up who get primary placement, who can claim the child on taxes, and child support. In almost all cases the mother gets primary placement unless you can be proved unfit as a parent which is very hard to do. so in answer to your question yes he can pick up the child any time he wants to with unpon reasonable time of notification. (i would if it were me not cut him off completely that looks bad in court. Until there is a court order of periods of physical placement anything goes and the police department will not do a thing because it is a family court matter and that would be over stepping their boundries.

Until he takes this matter to Court and asks for visitation, you do not have to let the child go with him. I am not saying that you should keep the children from him, but have him file a petition for visitaion before letting him take her out of your home. My bet is that he won't file a petition because this will open the arena for you to ask for child support. Contact your local Legal aid agency for more information.

He could if he wants, you really need to get custody and visitations order. Also take him for child support.

Alright, you are getting conflicting opinions here, for starters he cannot take her out of your home until she is 3 years old. He can visit her IN your home, but the law specifies that children under the age of 3 should not leave the home of the custodial parent, now this brings us to you needing to immediately file for sole custody if possible (you are the only one that know if he has the potential or already is a good father or not), this will immediately put in motion establishing his paternity and child support payments.

If its possible, find an attorney that offers the first consult free of charge and tell him what is going on and what it is you would like, an attorney is your best choice to handle this, in this free consult s/he will tell you how much s/he will charge and you can ask if you can give a retainer and pay the rest when your case is resolved.

Consider that the opinions in this webpage are given by people with some knowledge personal or otherwise acquired, but by no means substitute THE expert-close-all-loop holes-advice given by a profesional that spends his/her days in a court of law and that will handle your case making sure your children don't end up with the short end of the stick.

After all, this is the future of your children, you really don't want to do this by yourself if you don't really know what you're doing.

Lets begin with the basics here, paternity has not been established with a child born out of wedlock. Until that is done, he can not take her for visitation and you can not collect child support. When you file for child support, there will be a test done at that time. Child support and visitation are decided by two seperate court systems, but if he is proven to be the father and wants visitation he can legally do so.

Contact your towns court clerk and see if there is a standardize visitaion on file that you could get a copy of and go from there. Otherwise you wont have anything to go by at all.

The facts are simple get a lawyer laws vary from state to state it is the best way to get support and protect your children

You need to file for sole custody of your child asap and file for child support. Even if you were not married you have every legal right to file for child support,the burden of proof is upon the father. You do not have to let him take the chid until the court allows him visitation and that will not be done until he has taken a parently test proving he is the father and when that has been done only then can he file for visitation. When your baby arrives then you can file for child support for that baby as well. If his name has been put down as the father on the birth certificate it will be up to him to decide if he wants to take a partenty test. The court can except his name on the birth certificate if he does not want a partenty test and in that case he can ask for visitations. If it comes out that he is not the father then he can have any child support that may be ordered though the court to be dropped. If his name is on the birth certificate and you do not file for custody he can if he knows about the law and you don't want that so go file as soon as you read this. You can call legal aide and see if you qualitfy for free legal services,they go by your incom and you can look in the blue pages of your phone book under government,hope this helps you. Good luck!

This answer was edited by tomturkey 73 days ago.

Reason: wanted to add information for legal aide.

If there is nothing set, then yes, he could do that since he is the father.

if you don't want him to do that, you need to go to court to establish rules for what has to happen for him to have her for any period of time