My step-daughter (13) bought herself an ipad mini with birthday money recently. She went to her father’s house for summer visitation, and got grounded (for good reason). It has been a couple of months, and he appears to be using the ipad as a tool to control her. It has back fired and she no longer wants to see/talk/visit etc. Huge drama created. Her mother asked to get the ipad back in our possession, we would honor his grounding, but if we are holding the ipad, the daughter knows he is not just keeping it for himself. The father refuses to budge, so the question…who has rights to the ipad?
I have no idea about the “property rights of children”, but why don’t you have the mom tell her ex, that she bought the iPad for her daughter, and that she would like her property back…yada yada yada, yes you intend to enforce the grounding.
And if Dad, says daughter says she bought it, mom can say, where do you think she gets that kind of money, she just told you that to get you to give it back…
Yeah, it’s lying to your ex, but probably a bit easier than getting attorney’s involved.
Or if you’re better at talking to him than your wife, say you bought it for her and you want your property back.
My guess would be that the custodial parent is entitled to have “custodial” ownership of the minor’s property. If the child does not wish to visit the father, it’s kind of difficult to say “I’m just taking it out of her reach until the punishment is over” if she won’t be back to get it back.
If it’s joint custody, then it’s probably a bit more blurry. However, try to get it in writing - or email - when the device will be returned. That way, if it does not show up on schedule, then at least you have something - pretty sad if you have to go to family court over an iPad.
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Welcome to the SDMB, Cgoode1967.
The General Questions forum is for questions with factual answers. Since this is more of an opinion and advice question than something that can be factually cited, it belongs in our IMHO forum. I will move the thread for you.
Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.
I would suspect that laws or procedures exist for this and actually get used occasionally, if only for very high dollar amount items that would be worth spending thousands in legal fees to sue over.
E.g. maybe some eccentric rich person gives my kid a $50,000 diamond necklace. Can I legally take it from her and sell it for beer money? Sure, that would win me a #1 crappiest dad award, but would it be legal? Say I’m divorced and my ex-wife has her eye on the necklace. If we had 50/50 custody, would we each be entitled to a 50% interest? Would it depend on who had custody at the exact moment the gift was made? Does “parental jurisdiction” (for want of a better term) over a child’s property change every time custody does, or does property “settle” under a specific parent? (e.g. kid lives with mommy, but daddy retains jurisdiction over kid’s incredible collection of antique party dresses because they were a gift from him, and if mommy wants to restrict kid from wearing them she would need daddy’s permission)
It sounds like it’s not about the ipad. It’s about him a) essentially stealing it from her and b) trying to control her. I wouldn’t get in the middle of it. I wouldn’t try to recover the iPad or force the kid to go see or talk to her dad. He’s going to lose this war - maybe this year, maybe next year. But he’s going to lose. As the step parent, there’s no way for you to win here if you try to solve things. Tell him that he needs to make up with his daughter, who is a young lady now, not a child; tell her that she needs to be a grown up and deal with her father. Then go back to reading your book or whatever it is you do.
As a practical matter - I might ask the Dad just how long he expects this punishment to go on. Expecting other people to enforce his punishments for months on end is kind of a lot to ask.