changing sole legal custody to joint legal custody

[jordy256]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? TX

I'm not a party to this situation...Just asking out of curiosity.

Under what circumstances does a court allow sole legal custody to be changed to joint legal custody if the parents are completely disagreeable?
My cousin, who's like a brother to me, has had sole legal custody of his young son for a year and a half now; he won by default because the mother never responded to the suit after she was properly served.
However, after a year and a half, she is asking him to give her joint legal custody. He, of course, is apprehensive about this considering they did not have a good co-parenting relationship before a custody order was issued. Before the order was issued, he kept a calendar of all the days he kept his son, all the doctor visits he took him to and paid for, the letters from the daycares his son was disenrolled from because mom did not pay her half, the receipts from expenses he handled for their child clothes, medical, child care, etc.

Thus far, he's been the primary care provider.
In Texas, will a court automatically change sole to joint because another parent shows interest or is the co-parenting relationship taken into consideration?
(Thanks, I'm gonna ask him to come here himself also because obviously he knows more than I do. I just want to help him out a bit...)

 

[LdiJ]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? TX

I'm not a party to this situation...Just asking out of curiosity.

Under what circumstances does a court allow sole legal custody to be changed to joint legal custody if the parents are completely disagreeable?
My cousin, who's like a brother to me, has had sole legal custody of his young son for a year and a half now; he won by default because the mother never responded to the suit after she was properly served.
However, after a year and a half, she is asking him to give her joint legal custody. He, of course, is apprehensive about this considering they did not have a good co-parenting relationship before a custody order was issued. Before the order was issued, he kept a calendar of all the days he kept his son, all the doctor visits he took him to and paid for, the letters from the daycares his son was disenrolled from because mom did not pay her half, the receipts from expenses he handled for their child clothes, medical, child care, etc.

Thus far, he's been the primary care provider.
In Texas, will a court automatically change sole to joint because another parent shows interest or is the co-parenting relationship taken into consideration?
(Thanks, I'm gonna ask him to come here himself also because obviously he knows more than I do. I just want to help him out a bit...)

Joint legal custody is very much the norm. However, if parents do not coparent well at all, then an argument can definitely be made for not changing from sole to joint. If all decisions would be contentious its not in the child's best interests for the parents to have to come to agreements.

 

[Ronin]

In Texas, once a judgment has been rendered awarding sole conservatorship, there is no longer any presumption favoring joint conservatorship.

At this point the presumption is that at the time judgment was rendered sole conservatorship was in the best interests of the child. So the parent desiring joint will have to establish that circumstances have changed since judgment to the extent that joint managing is now in the childs best interests. Its not that easy.

However, the father should consider jont conservatorship, in spite of his difficulty in getting along with the ex, because it is probably the right thing to do. Unless there are major issues beyond disagreements you noted on shared expenses and such, both parents have an intrinsic right to share in the decisionmaking with respect to their child.