Legal guardianship

[rbv_shard 16]

On 9/3/2025 at 11:12 AM, top_secret said:

We have a fairly simple power of attorney which delegates most of the responsibilities of guardianship for my stepdaughter to me, and explicitly defines exactly the wishes and directions of her mother is for any reason she was not able to care for her child.  The idea is that we do not expect to need it at all and it certainly does not offer any permanent legal guardianship but if anything unexpected were to happen it would at least give me some legal authority to independently care for and take whatever steps I needed to act in the child’s best interest until such time as a more permanent custody arrangement could be settled by the relevant courts and it clearly expresses my wife’s wishes for her daughter in such circumstances.

Hopefully you meant "simple" in the English sense (not complicated) and not in the legal sense.  A simple power of attorney would lose effect just when you need it -- when the signer dies or becomes incapacitated.  You at least want a "durable" PoA.

 

I am not a lawyer and for that sort of document you definitely should have one.