End or change minor guardianship or non-parent custody

After a guardianship case is finalized, things may change over time. The parents’ situation may improve, or the guardian may need someone else to take on the responsibility. The parents, guardian, child age 12 or order, or someone else interested in the children’s welfare can file in court to change or end (terminate) a minor guardianship.

The same rules and process apply for ending a Non-Parent Custody Order. Those orders were issued instead of guardianship before the law changed in 2021. If you want to change a Non-Parent Custody Order, you may have to file a Petition for Minor Guardianship.

A judge will end (will terminate) the guardianship if the original reasons for the guardianship no longer exist, unless they find that ending the guardianship would be harmful to the children and the children’s interest in continuing the guardianship outweighs the parent’s interests in ending it.

If guardianship is terminated, the parents will go back to having the same rights they did before the guardianship or non-parent custody case started. Any order requiring a parent to pay child support to the guardian or non-parent custodian will also end. 

You can ask to change a guardianship to change the parents’ visitation (residential schedule), decision-making, access to records, or to replace the guardian with a different person. This could be a “successor guardian” named in the original order, or someone else if needed. 

The process to change or end minor guardianship only applies if there’s a final order. 

Don’t use this process if any of these describes your situation: 

• There’s no court order entered, just a proposed order
  • There’s only an Emergency Minor Guardianship order
    • The state put your children in foster care (you lost custody in a dependency case)
    • You lost custody to the other parent
    • A court has ended (has terminated) your parental rights