attorney fees

[SusanB]

What is the name of your state? FL

Please let me begin with this disclaimer. I am a grandmother and perfectly understand that I have no rights to the child/visitation/support etc. My 18 yr old unmarried daughter and her baby lives with me. I am providing financial support including attorney fees for what has turned into a very difficult paternity/custody/support case (still ongoing). My daughter helps as much as she can, is in college but like most we are not wealthy. The father, also 18, lives with and is totally dependent on his parents.

I am interested in FL Statute 742.031 discussing a father can be ordered, if appropriate, to pay reasonable attorney fees…costs of the proceeding. Does anyone know if this is based solely on the ability to pay? Would the fact that the father has increased our attorney costs play into consideration? Actions include, agreeing to visitation schedule, even in writing through his attorney, and changing his mind creating multiple correspondence, and re-writes of agreement. Refusing to discuss with my daughter, concerns she has about his father (a minister) who has outstanding legal issues, such as outstanding warrant, habitual DWLS including current suspension that he is driving on, several illegal financial issues going on, etc.

Breaking the law makes us uncomfortable, not something we are familiar with and necessitated advice from attorney, since baby lives with this person during his unsupervised overnight visitations. There are other issues but these are the major ones.

Does anyone know if this statute would support a portion of attorney/court fees to be reimbursed or if it is soley on each parties ability to pay?

Thank you in advance, and I truly appreciate any information anyone has on this.

 

[stealth2]

That all sounds pretty typical of custody cases, so I wouldn't count on having any of the attorney fees reimbursed.

 

[CJane]

Sounds pretty typical to me too. Usually, for attorney's fees to be paid by the other party, some sort of bad faith has to have been involved in the filing or somewhere along the line.

Babydaddy is under no obligation whatsoever to discuss his father with your daughter. If you're concerned that grampa will be driving Jr around with a suspended license, have it written into the plan that Jr shall only be transported by a licensed driver. Easy peasy.

 

[Ohiogal]

What is the name of your state? FL

Please let me begin with this disclaimer. I am a grandmother and perfectly understand that I have no rights to the child/visitation/support etc. My 18 yr old unmarried daughter and her baby lives with me. I am providing financial support including attorney fees for what has turned into a very difficult paternity/custody/support case (still ongoing). My daughter helps as much as she can, is in college but like most we are not wealthy. The father, also 18, lives with and is totally dependent on his parents.

I am interested in FL Statute 742.031 discussing a father can be ordered, if appropriate, to pay reasonable attorney fees…costs of the proceeding. Does anyone know if this is based solely on the ability to pay?

Nope not solely.


Would the fact that the father has increased our attorney costs play into consideration?

He has also increased his costs.

Actions include, agreeing to visitation schedule, even in writing through his attorney, and changing his mind creating multiple correspondence, and re-writes of agreement.

He is allowed to do that. He can change his mind several times until the child turns 18 and take your daughter to court. He does not have to agree to everything. Until there is an order he can back out of an agreement. Once it is submitted to a court and signed by the judge he is stuck with it as an order until a change of circumstances.

Refusing to discuss with my daughter, concerns she has about his father (a minister) who has outstanding legal issues, such as outstanding warrant, habitual DWLS including current suspension that he is driving on, several illegal financial issues going on, etc.


His father is NONE of your daughter's business. She slept with him when he had this man as his father. His father is NOT a party to the suit as you are not a party to the suit. So why should he discuss his family with her? The ones at issue are the baby, your daughter and him. Do what Cjane said -- if you don't want grandpa driving make it in the order that only licensed drivers are allowed to drive the child. Even then the law states that only licensed drivers can drive the child.

Breaking the law makes us uncomfortable, not something we are familiar with and necessitated advice from attorney, since baby lives with this person during his unsupervised overnight visitations. There are other issues but these are the major ones.

Breaking the law makes a lot of people uncomfortable. However your daughter slept with this man and conceived a child with him. she now doesn't get to say it was a mistake and he has to live by her rules. Not the way it works. He has a right to have the child around his family as much as your daughter as the right to have the child around her family.


Does anyone know if this statute would support a portion of attorney/court fees to be reimbursed or if it is soley on each parties ability to pay?

Thank you in advance, and I truly appreciate any information anyone has on this.

It is solely on your ability to pay for the attorney you hire. You can't hire an attorney with the expectation that the other side should have to pay for your legal counsel. It doesn't work that way.

 

[SusanB]

update- please advise

I hear what you're saying about this. This is our first experience with attorneys so I apologize if this sounds ignorant to anyone/everyone and also apologize for the length. I believe there is bad faith involved. Mainly due to the fact that it has taken three submissions for the father to submit his financial affidavit which was due early May. He left out bank statements, pay stubs, and income from a job held. After three submissions it still does not include everything and amounts shown compute to him working 14 hours a week.

There have been previous agreements made between the parties and out of the blue his attorney sent a letter to the court saying they were ready for court (no mediation, no accurate financial affidavit, both required) which is when our attorney set up mediation. His attorney is one of those that accepted a low monthly payment vs per hour if that makes a difference.

Mediation was last week. Instead of working off of a parenting agreement already drafted by our attorney, the other attorney insisted on starting with a blank page. (They never commented on our draft). The mediator sat with the other party writing it up and would come in the other room with my daughter and her attorney to agree. This went on for 2 ½ hours and they stayed an additional 1 hour trying to work up an agreement. Very costly, and they ran out of time.

When we received the draft from the mediator it was all leaning towards the father including having my daughter responsible for 100% of health insurance. The visitation was written very loosely and to be flexible (so my daughter can work around his basketball games/practice etc).

The father of the baby later agreed with my daughter to sit down with our agreement and tell her what he doesn’t like about it and try to reach an agreement. There were very few changes to the original agreement, because it was written very fairly, and is back to our attorney to update and send back to them.

When asked why they did not use that agreement in mediation, the father told my daughter his attorney read it, marked it all up and said we are not doing this. I am skeptical that he will sign this, which means he once again is only running our costs up.
Is it possible his attorney is deliberately running our costs up and wants to go to court?
Is this considered bad faith? Thank you for any input/advice you have on this.

 

[stealth2]

First of all, you're unlikely to prove that his lawyer is deliberately running up your legal fees.

It is also not unexpected - or unreasonable - to rethink various points agreed to in mediation after having a chance to sleep on it. Mediation can be just as stressful as court, and there comes a point where one will simply agree to be done with it. And later realize that it may not have been the best solution. That doesn't mean the original agreement was reached in bad faith.

I had many similar issues during my custody case, and I paid all of my own legal fees (which were substantial). It was only during a support modification which he fought tooth & nail and consistently ignored court orders to produce documents resulting in numerous continuations, etc, that the judge had enough and ordered him to pay a significant portion of my costs.

Like I said - I wouldn't count on getting any of your daughter's fees paid by Dad.

 

[LdiJ]

My attorney would say that his attorney is one of those attorneys who is not willing or able to accept anything that has been written by another attorney. My attorney said that its a common problem. The solution is for your attorney to put his/her foot down with the other attorney.

 

[SusanB]

thank you both for responding. he also is an attorney not willing to write up something himself. If this last agreement doesn't fly, we are off to court which will be really ugly, but we can't let them keep putting us through all of these hoops and getting no where. I really appreciate your advice. Thanks again.