My mother passed away when I was 16 and I haven’t seen my parents since I was 8.
My father doesn’t live in united states nor does he work, I WAS under guardianship of my aunt since 8 years old up until I was 16. I’m 18 living with another relative, they are not going to help pay for my college tuition, I pay for my own bills but not housing or food she claims me under her tax but she said she wont anymore this year since im leaving for college. anyone know what situation im under? Im still unsure if im claimed as independent or dependent or who’s income I should put. I do work part time.
Did your Aunt have a court ordered guardianship?
If you were in a legal guardianship then you are considered independent for financial aid and you will indicate that on your FAFSA and you will only put your own information. See the dependency questions, if you can answer YES to any of the questions on this page you are Independent.
https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/fafsa/filling-out/dependency
If you are not in court ordered legal guardianship, you will have to get your father’s information for the FAFSA and all other financial aid paperwork. In addition you have to include your income.
If you are in court ordered legal guardianship, you will be an independent student and will only have to put your income/assets on the financial aid forms. You will be flagged for verification for which you will have to supply the school with copies of the court documents.
is there different types of legal guardianship? Because I know there are documents stating that my aunt has legal guardianship over me, I just need to find out if its court ordered and what not.
Yes, there could be temporary legal guardianship for a determined amount of time while the Court determines permanent legal guardianship. (I had this happen to a student last year and she wasn’t warded independent status because it happened when she was 10). There can be informal guardianship agreements where your dad signs a notarized letter letting your aunt be your guardian to make school and medical decisions about you ( this is not legal guardianship).
What happened when you turned 16? Did your aunt go back to court to give someone else guardianship to you? Were you emancipated by the courts? If you were not emancipated some one still needed to be your guardian while you were a minor
when my mother passed away my father’s brother took us from my aunt (who has/had legal guardianship over me, not sure if im still under her guardianship haven’t spoken to her in 2 years) and now I am currently living with my uncle but they don’t have guardianship over me at all.
So basically all I need is to find out if im sill in legal guardianship and get those papers mailed to me? What if im no longer in her guardianship? What would that make me?
If you are 18 then you don’t need a guardianship and unless you were able to answer yes to any of the questions in the link, you are required to use your Father’s income and asset information for FAFSA, unless you can get something called ‘professional judgement’ to allow you to file as independent because of your circumstances. You should write a document to very clearly and briefly lay out a timeline of a series of events. When you mother died and who you lived with and the address of each of those places, when your father left and what his whereabouts. You will have to ask each college you apply to for a dependency override.
You should contact the aunt and determine the nature of the guardianship and any paperwork which you will likely need. If a court ordered it, then it may be permanent unless revoked by the court, no matter if you moved in with another relative.
My relative, whom im currently living with is my caregiver, what does that mean? Does that affect my independent/dependent status? Does that mean im no longer under legal guardianship with my aunt who I used to live with?
You need to get the paperwork and see what it says. FOr instance,
IMO if your aunt had court ordered guardianship your uncle would have no say in taking you from your aunt. Get the paperwork. Read it. If you don’t understand it you can post it here for some help.
I understand the desire to help OP. I wish s/he would follow my advice on one of the other posts to seek help from a children’s legal services office. No one here know what state is involved. No one here knows what the law of that state is. Some of these responses may be correct. For example, @Erin’s Dad @5:36 pm has a point. I would not recommend posting the information here for advice from people who are not lawyers in OP’s state. There is free legal advice available to you, OP. Use THAT rather than posting here. Please.
Likely it means nothing for FAFSA purposes that you are living with your uncle. And someone claiming you on taxes actually doesn’t have anything to do with FAFSA dependency that is just for tax dependency. You can’t change the past, so your status was just your status. As you see from the Federal Dependency chart I linked, if you were in a legal guardianship as of the age specified you file as independent. It isn’t anything complicated.
It may be helpful to consult an attorney for other purposes, I don’t know. But I don’t know an attorney can help you file a FAFSA . I can’t imagine the guardianship docs are so complicated to need an attorney to figure this simple question. It either existed in the past or not. You are 18 now so it doesn’t matter who you live with.
If you were not in a legal guardianship then speak to the colleges you are applying to about professional judgement regarding a dependency override, those aid officers will be the ones that the gov’t uses to determine if you qualify for that.
apache, do you have any contact with your father? If not, is there a history of abuse or abandonment on the part of your father? These are relevant questions in terms of the possibility of getting a dependency override.
I suspect you may not have been in a legal guardianship … at least, not the kind that satisfies the criteria for being considered independent for FAFSA purposes … since your uncle was able to just “take” you from your aunt. If you do check the “in guardianship” box on the FAFSA, the school will request a copy of guardianship papers that proved that you were in guardianship at the time you turned 18. You may want to ask your uncle whether you were in a legal guardianship when you turned 18, and if so, ask for information so that you can obtain your paperwork. Maybe your counselor at school can assist you … he/she may have info in your file that explains what is going on.
If not, though, you’ll need to either obtain your dad’s info or request a dependency override. The reason I asked the questions above are because if there is a relationship with your father, and he is simply absent because he is in another country (whether by choice or not), you must include his info on your FAFSA. If there is no relationship at all … abuse, abandonment … you will need to contact each school to ask about a dependency override. Each school may have different info they need, but they will all need info to document your situation.
No matter what, you cannot use your uncle’s info on the FAFSA for “parent.”