Guardianship Planning for Divorced and Blended Families
For families of divorce, it may seem pretty clear cut who will raise your children if something happens to you. Absent unfitness of your ex-spouse and termination of parental rights, chances are that if something happened to you, your children would go to live permanently with the surviving parent. While this is true, it is still important to engage in guardianship planning for your children’s ultimate protection.
If your ex-spouse is out of town when something tragic happens to you, you need to plan who will take temporary guardianship of your children until your ex-spouse can arrive to take permanent custody. Your selections for temporary guardians should be memorialized in writing so that the authorities will be able to honor your wishes as quickly as possible.
If by strange circumstance, you and your ex-spouse should perish within a short amount of time of each other, you will need to have both temporary and permanent guardians named. Generally, the guardian nominations of the last parent to die will be honored. In the case the order of death cannot be determined, it is of some importance that your guardian nominations are cohesive with your ex-spouse to prevent drawn out litigation between your individual nominees.
Finally, if your ex-spouse is an unfit parent and parental rights have not yet been terminated, you should memorialize the reasons that your children should not be placed with your ex-spouse (i.e. circumstances that may warrant Child Protective Service’s involvement). This way, you can let the court know that your children may be placed in harms way if given to the other parent.
Guardianship nomination is one of the most important actions you can take to protect your children and great care should be taken that it is done correctly. Work with an experienced estate planning attorney to make sure that your children are taken care of in the manner you wish.
