Child custody is a legal issue and relates to the rights and duties of a parent towards his/her child. It becomes especially crucial in the event of divorce or annulment of marriage between the parents. It has two components; physical custody which decides with which parent the child would live and legal custody which determines the decision making power of a parent for his/her child. Likewise there are two major ways of having custody. In the first case, i.e. joint custody, both the parents are involved in the major decisions of a child’s upbringing. In the second case, as in sole custody, a single parent is involved in the decision making process for the child, with whom the child lives.
According to New York child custody laws, a court of New York can give orders on visitation and child custody till the person turns eighteen. There is no special favour granted through a New York child custody law to any single parent at the time of annulment of marriage. According to the New York child custody laws, the primary caregiver with whom the child is directly engaged with daily activities, either the father or the mother is favoured while granting custody.
For the New York State Custody Laws to take effect, the child should be living in New York for more than six months at the time. New York courts usually provide custody to a child’s married or unmarried parent. Along with this, adoptive parents, heterosexual or otherwise also have similar custody rights. Grandparents, brother, sister, a relative or stepparents are given custody of a child over a parent in extraordinary circumstances. However, New York child custody laws limits visitation rights to biological and adoptive parents, sister, brother and grandparents. Till now, non parents like uncle, aunt, cousins or stepparents, a former same sex partner do not have visitation rights.
A Brooklyn Annulment Attorney can guide you to the New York annulment laws and likewise child custody. Grounds of fraud and coercion are the major factors for a marriage annulment in New York. Such marriages are valid but voidable, as in the case of a marriage undertaken for a green card. It is also applicable where one of the partners is under the marriageable age or intoxicated at the time of marrying. Brooklyn is the most densely populated borough of New York and has a number of annulment attorneys providing indispensable legal assistance. A Brooklyn annulment attorney will be able to explain how to annul a “voidable” marriage, especially if there are issues like division of property or child custody and support involved.
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