Q: My ex and I have a verbal agreement for living arrangements of one of our children. He has not returned her.
My 13 y/o has a history of lying when she is about to be grounded, resulting in false police reports being made. She was residing with me, with text message agreement with her father. She was going to be grounded for something she had done on my time. She went to visit dad, tried to say that I was threatening her life through text. Police checked her and my texts on both of our phones. Police determined that she "was just a typical teen trying to cause drama and that there is no danger to her." Dad will not return her home to me and I am not able to contact her. It has been 3 weeks. She is homeschooled and is missing state mandatory testing. We have 2 boys that reside with dad per mutual agreement. He temporarily kept them from me due to this incident, but has resumed our agreement with only them. But she is currently residing with maternal Grandma, she's not even with dad. Dad refuses to answer any questions I have regarding her also.
A: Verbal agreements re parenting time and custody are not enforceable by police or a court. You must get a court order reflecting your verbal agreement. If you have any order from the court regarding your joint children then follow that until you can get it modified. You could use the police to enforce return of your child from Grandparents however.
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