Juvenile rights to property

I am 16 years old, and resident of Missouri. My mother, dear that she is, recently stole approximately $350 that I had hidden in a common area of our house. She knows the money is mine and will not return it.

As a legal minor, do I have the legal right to maintain property over the purview of my (sole) legal guardian? If I do have that right, what would my next move be to secure the return of my property?

Free_Radical154 said:

I am 16 years old, and resident of Missouri. My mother, dear that she is, recently stole approximately $350 that I had hidden in a common area of our house. She knows the money is mine and will not return it.

As a legal minor, do I have the legal right to maintain property over the purview of my (sole) legal guardian? If I do have that right, what would my next move be to secure the return of my property?

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You hid the money in a common area of "our" house? Technically that is your issue. It was not "our house" -- the house belongs to mom. You have no right to this money quite frankly. While it may have been your money you have to prove that she "stole" it. YOu cannot do that if all she did was find it hidden in a common area of HER property.

I happen to, by the wrath of circumstance and a crippled emancipation process, 'live' in 'her house'. She had been seeking this money for some time and had so amiably 'ransacked' my room in search of said funds, which is what compelled me to hide in a 'common area' of 'her house'. I would've gotten myself a bank account, but I would have needed 'her signature' for it.

However, this is relatively semantical. What I need to know is what you mean by, "You have no right to this money quite frankly." Am I or am I not legally allowed to possess private property against the wishes of my parent/guardian?

P.S.
I hate this country.

Free_Radical154 said:

I hate this country.

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You know, I understand the angst and frustration that's all a part of being 16, but that remark is really uncalled for. "This country" has laws pertaining to being a minor vs. being an adult for good reasons. It sucks that you have a mother that would steal money from her own daughter (and I say that without knowing the circumstances or her reasons for taking the money), but that's not "this country's" fault. Be grateful you don't live in a country where disrespecting one's parents is punishable by stoning.

You can buy a good fire/waterproof safe with a combination lock for about $30. Get one, and you won't have this problem in the future.

Free_Radical154 said:

I happen to, by the wrath of circumstance and a crippled emancipation process, 'live' in 'her house'. She had been seeking this money for some time and had so amiably 'ransacked' my room in search of said funds, which is what compelled me to hide in a 'common area' of 'her house'. I would've gotten myself a bank account, but I would have needed 'her signature' for it.

However, this is relatively semantical. What I need to know is what you mean by, "You have no right to this money quite frankly." Am I or am I not legally allowed to possess private property against the wishes of my parent/guardian?

P.S.
I hate this country.

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Quite frankly you have no right to possess anything against the wishes your parent/guardian while in their home.

Under certain circumstances, parents are required to maintain your property in "trust" for you. We don't know if this applies at all in your situation.

It isn’t in a trust. I suppose there’s nothing I can do, but thank you all for your advice.

Clt747 said:

You know, I understand the angst and frustration that's all a part of being 16, but that remark is really uncalled for. "This country" has laws pertaining to being a minor vs. being an adult for good reasons. It sucks that you have a mother that would steal money from her own daughter (and I say that without knowing the circumstances or her reasons for taking the money), but that's not "this country's" fault. Be grateful you don't live in a country where disrespecting one's parents is punishable by stoning.

You can buy a good fire/waterproof safe with a combination lock for about $30. Get one, and you won't have this problem in the future.

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Every day I see my little brother, I thank God for the legal differences between a minor and an adult. I simply feel that both the laws and the culture of this day and age, while they pay the utmost respect to the differences between a 6-year-old and a 60-year-old, fail to fully appreciate the differences between a 6-year old and a 16-year-old, no matter how precocious the latter may be.

While I burden myself with no illusions that any country at the time would treat me much better, I have grown very sick of watching the magical number of '18' be dangled over my head as the universal threshold for some Litmus test of maturity. I can promise you that the college I attend has many 18-year-olds more immature than I with many more rights than I.

The safe is an interesting, if curious idea, but I think you underestimate the bitter resolve that runs in my family. Sparing the fact that I no longer have $30 to buy one, (and lack a sense of irony sufficient to warrant stealing a safe with nothing in it) she'd carry the whole thing away if it wasn't nailed down. If it *was* nailed down, she'd wait for me to leave the house and pry up the nails. One way or another, I just know I'd come home one day to find it ripped apart with power tools in my garage or walk in my room to find it's door swaying gently in some poetically convenient breeze with a stethoscope dangling overhead.

This culture and legal system need to stop thinking of maturity as an on-and-off switch, but a slow progression that stands at very different places for very different people. And if anyone truly thinks themselves to be free of the sin of immaturity, let them cast the first stone at every 16-year-old college student in the world. We need to stop looking down on people and saying something like "I understand the angst and frustration that's all a part of being 16" and start looking people in the eye and saying something like "I understand the angst and frustration that's all a part of being robbed blind".

Because, let's face it. It doesn't really matter how old you are. If someone had the right to take all of *your* money due to an arbitrary legal oversight, you'd be a wee bit hostile too.

Dude,
get a job. Be able to provide a roof over your head, food on the table and support yourself completely without help from the state. Then you will be able to be emancipated. Until then, you are not unless you are 18. Why? Because you are a minor until the age of 18 and your parents are responsible for your actions.

Dude,
i have a job.
I'm a college student. It actually takes a lot of time.

The homeless guy on my bus doesn't meet any of your sweet little criterion, but he still seems to have more rights than I do. You clearly missed the point of my last post, so please, keep your myopic views on human rights to yourself.

I was born into the world with nothing and will leave it quite the same. The mere fact of this, despite my timely attempts to remedy it with higher education, is not grounds to accuse me of being incompetent for my own actions on some grand level.

Free_Radical154 said:

It isn’t in a trust. I suppose there’s nothing I can do, but thank you all for your advice.

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You should re-read my post. I didn't say in a trust...

two words sweetheart...

bank account

it's a simple solution.

(it's been so long since I was a teen I don't even remember if you have to have your parents sign for one or not, but I don't recall having to do so when I got my first bank account)

Free_Radical154 said:

Dude,
i have a job.
I'm a college student. It actually takes a lot of time.

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Wow! Really? What a surprise!
Because none of US went to college.

Free_Radical154 said:

The homeless guy on my bus doesn't meet any of your sweet little criterion, but he still seems to have more rights than I do. You clearly missed the point of my last post, so please, keep your myopic views on human rights to yourself.

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Tell it to the next attorney to whom you speak. In the meantime, that attorney was perfectly correct. The views are not myopic; they are well-grounded in the law.

-The views are, as you said, well-grounded in the law.

They're still myopic. Since when does legality have anything to do with justice?

-And my very point is the fact that you *did* go to college. I was responding to the sneering implication that I'm not taking responsible steps to support myself by lamenting the fact that I'm doing exactly what someone of the age of 18 does to ideally ensure their long-term capacity to support themselves.

-And yes, I believe that I would need an undersignature for a bank account.

-In trust.. in 'a' trust.. One way or another, I don't think so. The money doesn't even exist in any official documentation. Though I do appreciate your fine attention to detail.

Though, I hate to agree, most, if not all, banks require a parents signature for a minor's bank account. I worked at a bank and the parents name had to be on the checking account with the minor.