A judge can serve parents’ legal obligations to provide their children with education, food, and clothing. However, by granting an emancipation petition, the court can give the child an adult responsibility for their own welfare. The ages may differ in certain parts of the world.
Every child and their parents go through disagreements, usually when the children are teenagers. Parents often threaten to kick their children out of the house, and sometimes they may even follow through! Is it legal to do so, and without any notice given?
Parenting methods are controversial, and there may be some disagreements over specific parenting styles and child-rearing. State and federal laws take a close view of children being kicked out of their homes unless they are emancipated. Read more to find out!
Related Reading: Can Parents Take Their Kids Money?
Is It Illegal To Kick Your Child Out Without Giving Notice?
In general, you as a parent only have duties to minor children. Once your children turn 18 years of age, those duties end, along with them being a minor. You may evict your adult child from your home and stop supporting them entirely.
You are, however, still kept liable for the property or personal damages caused by the child if they are not yet 19 years of age. It is not easy to make any parents liable for this law, but it extends the child’s possible exposure for another year at least.
Otherwise, the child protection laws only protect minors, which means under 18 years of age. Once a child has already turned 18, the state law states that they are of legal age for any and all purposes.
There is, however, one parental duty that doesn’t end with immediate effect when a child turns 18—court-ordered child support. The law specializing in child support defines the word “child” as any child under the age of 19 who is still attending high school.
So, this means that a child’s 18th birthday doesn’t immediately terminate your duty to pay child support. You will still have to pay child support until they have graduated from high school. It is even possible for child support orders to be extended further, especially for physically and mentally disabled adult children.
However, if you have an adult child who refuses to leave home, they can, legally, be evicted without notice. If there is no lease, along with no documented agreement to pay rent, you can simply demand immediate possession of the premises.
If they still refuse to leave, you may take the second step in an eviction case, known as a court case. A court case is a kind of backup plan if all legal steps have failed to work. It would be best if you never tried to evict your child from your home physically by yourself, as it can be dangerous and lead to assault lawsuits against you as the parent.
After you file for a court case, the child will be served with a copy of the eviction complaint, along with a summons. Your adult child can come to court and ask for a trial. At a trial, they can avoid eviction, but they will have to prove some right to live in your house or some defect in how you followed the eviction procedure.
With an eviction order, it allows the sheriff to remove them and their belongings. If your child still tries to return to your house after the eviction, you can ask the police to arrest them as trespassers.
Emancipating A Minor
Until a child is at least 16 years old, they are unable to petition to be emancipated. In some places like California, minors can be emancipated at the young age of 14 years.
If you are unsure what emancipation means, it is a legal way for children to become adults before they are 18 years of age. Once a child is emancipated, their parents do not have custody or the authority to control them anymore.
Emancipation is forever, and parents no longer have to feed, house, or pay child support for the emancipated minor.
If The Minor Is Not Emancipated
If you kick an underage child out of the house without giving notice (underage, meaning under the age of 18 years old in most states), it can be considered as abandoning your child.
Child abandonment is seen as a crime, and even if you aren’t leaving your child on a street corner, some things can still be seen as child abandonment.
These are things such as leaving your child with a neighbor and not communicating with them about the arrangements or length of stay or failing to provide money to provide for them.
You can also be charged with child abandonment if you refuse to participate or corporate in a plan by a school or program to report a parent for child abandonment.
It is also good to keep in mind that, depending on the laws of your state, a school administrator and even a concerned neighbor in these cases are legally required to report a parent when there is any suspicion of child abandonment.
Children Leaving the Home
There are no minimum age requirements for when a child can leave home. The law states that the parents are responsible for looking after their children’s needs until they turn 18 years of age. This means that it might be acceptable for children to leave their home before 18 if:
- They asked for the parent’s permission and gained consent.
- They have a safe and healthy place to go where their needs will be fulfilled.
- They are otherwise following the law (Still attending school)
- The parents make sure that their needs are still being met both financially and physically.
How Children Can Be Emancipated From Family
The road to getting emancipated isn’t just something that rebellious teenagers want to know more about. Some guardians and parents also often have questions about minors’ emancipation and how it will affect their legal obligations.
There are generally some common guidelines about how to get emancipated and what it means, such as:
Statutory Age
Each state has a statute that dictates how old a child has to be in order to get emancipated. For most states, the statuary age is at 16, but the emancipation age can be as young as 14 years in some states!
He Child’s Level of Maturity
For it to be legal to move out at 16 or 17, the emancipation of a minor should be confirmed by a court that the child has enough adult-like thinking and acting skills and a sense of maturity to be able to be on his or her own.
Proof They Can Support Themselves Financially
In order to get emancipated, all children have to prove, by law, that they can support themselves. This is why the emancipation of minors is often associated with child celebrities who wish to keep greedy family members away from their money and possessions.
Notify His or Her Parents/Guardians
A child’s legal guardians must get a reasonable opportunity to respond to the emancipations request, so they can either approve or disapprove it.
Automatic Emancipation
In some states, the emancipation of a minor automatically happens when the child has a legal marriage or when joining the armed forces.
Related Reading: Can Parents Their Force Children To Attend Church?
Conclusion
if you do not want to live for your parents, you are not forced to get emancipated. You can either get counseling or mediation with your parents, you can choose to go live with another adult in your family, or you can make an agreement with your parents to move somewhere elsewhere where it is a safe environment.
If the situation doesn’t get better with time and communication, you may get help from private or public agencies.
You might stop being a minor at 18, but that doesn’t mean you stop being your parent’s child. Your parents’ legal obligations, however, do stop. Some people may consider it cold-hearted and wrong, but it is seen as perfectly legal and fine to abandon adult children.
