Scallywag2005

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? MA

My wife and I have permanent custody of our twin grandsons of +12yr for the last two years. I will be 65 this year and plan to retire when I am 65.5yrs. My wife will be retiring at the same time. We would like to return to the U.K. for a variety of different reasons. We are both U.S. and U.K. citizens. We have family who can help us raise the children, health care would be cheaper, educating the boys would be cheaper, etc.

The mother is currently inthe U.S. but in a different state and a British citizen. The father is currently in the U.S. in the same state as us and is an American citizen.

Can we take the boys to England and do we have to go through some formal process?

Do the parents have visitation rights?

The mother does not. The father does.

Then it is most likely that you're going to have to go through the courts to (a) remove the children from the state's jurisdiction and (b) set up an appropriate visitation schedule. I certainly wouldn't up and leave the country with them.

Then you will have to petition the courts to take the child to the UK and be prepared to pay transportation for the children to facilitate the father's visitation. Which of the parents is your child? The US State Department has information about international travel with minors at this site.
http://travel.state.gov/

The mother.

Scallywag2005 said:

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? MA

My wife and I have permanent custody of our twin grandsons of +12yr for the last two years. I will be 65 this year and plan to retire when I am 65.5yrs. My wife will be retiring at the same time. We would like to return to the U.K. for a variety of different reasons. We are both U.S. and U.K. citizens. We have family who can help us raise the children, health care would be cheaper, educating the boys would be cheaper, etc.

The mother is currently inthe U.S. but in a different state and a British citizen. The father is currently in the U.S. in the same state as us and is an American citizen.

Can we take the boys to England and do we have to go through some formal process?

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Unless the parents agree to you taking the children to the UK you are in for a very tough legal battle. Its very difficult to get permission to remove children from the US if their parents are not in agreement with the move. Naturally there are alot of different factors that would be involved, including fitness issues....but its still probably one of the more difficult things to accomplish.

Since you already have guardianship and your daughter is the parent without visitaiton, the biggest part of the battle is already behind you, but will be much easier for everyone if you can get an agreement with the parents before getting the court orders. The children's best interest is condsidered, not how much easier it will be for you. Please be prepared to offer reasonable visitation for the children, up fornt and to point out the positive points in the children's best interest. Are the parents paying child support? Do the children already have passports? Be sure to check out the State Department site.

The father is meant to pay $225/ wk child support for the two boys. He is currently only paying $75/wk and has amassed over just the last two years, arrears of $7005.62. Even with this situation we allow visitation to the father more or less when ever he wants it. The mother has been both physically and verbally abusive to both of us and the courts have removed her visitation rights until she submits to a psychiatric evaluation and presents the court with the outcome. We would and have been prepared to consider visitation for her but only with assurances, as a restraining order had been in force on her. Prior to us gaining custody of the boys the mother had prevented both the father and us from seeing them and severed all connections with the extended family.

The mother has never paid child support and in fact we have recently had to send her money to prevent her from defaulting on a series of bills.

The boys do have passports.