Obtaining Parental Guidence In Thailand As A Single Foreinger.

[lonexpat]

Through ignorence, I was not registerd as being the father to my daughter .7 years on and not withstanding the emotional ,verbal , mental and physical abuse I"ve put up with it is finally time to be recongised as being a father to my daughter. Not according to her mother. Now, I"ve read that having your name on the birth certificate means nothing. The judge in this case decided that ny daughter having my surname was enough for me to be recongized by the courts as being the legal father. Her mother is now in prison and I am the only person taking care of my daughter.According to a lawyer, the police now have juristiction to grant me parental guildence without any interference from any other source.Is this true? All advice is deeply appreciated.

[Mario2008]

Not sure what you mean here.

You are the legal father of the child. When the mother is not able to take care of the child, it woud be natural that the child will be handed in your care. That might be different if the mother still has sole parental powers over the child. Than the mother could appoint someone else as guardian.

If you are talking about getting sole parental powers over the child yourself, you have to go to court and convince the court that the mother is unable to take care of the child and/or a danger to the child.

The police have no authorithy here, other then when they arest someone who has children they must make sure that the children are being looked after.

[lonexpat]

Thank you for your reply. A lawyer was spoken to about going to court and obtaining sole parental power whilst the mother is in prison.This is to avoid any problems when the mother is released. I was told by the lawyer that it didn"t need to go to court as in this case the police would issue me with documentation stating that I have sole parental power.I would have thought only a judge could deal with this matter so Ijust wanter clarification.

[Mario2008]

The police has no powers in this. You will have to go to court.

It might be that the mother loses her parental rights automatically in certain cases, such a a conviction for certain crimes or when sentenced for more than X years, giving you automatically sole custody. But that is something alawyer should be able to tell you. But you can't get sole custody from the police.

[lonexpat]

Mario 2008. Thank you for your kind attention. I believe you"re right, so the next course of action will be to go to court. Again, thank you very much.

[phuketrichard]

I have sole custody of my daughter and had to go to court to obtain it. Relatively easy, obtain a lawyer thou. My lawyer here in Phuket charged 50,000 baht for this and that included the divorce as well

Lawyer sent out a letter advising the mother to attend court, mother did not show up, Court grants custody.

You will need that paper to obtain her passport ( both Thai and other) but not her id card

[lonexpat]

Thank you Phuketrichard. It"s for the passport that I"m looking for sole custody. I"m quite fortunate to know a few lawyers from the school where I teach, so I"ll get the ball rolling tomorrow.