Q. My husband & I are transferring physical & legal custody of the children to a family member. It is my understanding this will be permanent until they reach age 18. Is that correct?? Or can that order later be broken such as in a divorce or any other situation?

A. The answer depends on how you are transferring custody. There is a different procedure if it is child custody in adult Family Division, as opposed to under a guardianship or under juvenile dependency law. You should consult an attorney to review your rights. I assume you are doing it in adult Family Court? If so, make sure your attorney titles the order “interim”, which means temporary. This way, it can be modified in the future. If you are doing this under jurisdiction of juvenile dependency rules, you will want an order for Permanent Legal Custodian, or PLC, which can be modified in the future. It could be that you don’t need court involvement at all, which would actually be better for you in regard to returning custody to you in the future. Since I do not know all of the facts here, you really should sit down with a family law attorney and thoroughly discuss the entire situation.