A guardian is appointed by the court for a minor child,
if both parents are unable or unwilling to take sufficient care of their child's affairs. In this case, parental custody is often withdrawn from the parents.
If both custodial parents die or, if only one parent is custodial, if this parent dies.
If it cannot be determined who the parents of a child are.
A specific person, an association or the local youth welfare office can be appointed as guardian.
The youth welfare office automatically becomes the guardian if an unmarried underage mother has a child. This does not apply if the child's father is of legal age, paternity has been established before the birth and the parents have made a declaration of joint parental responsibility. This guardianship ends as soon as the mother comes of age. In addition to this guardianship "by operation of law", there are also supplementary regulations as to when guardianship does not apply or in which cases it also applies. You can obtain information on this from the youth welfare office.
Guardianship is also possible instead of guardianship. Guardianship only covers some of the regulatory areas of guardianship, e.g. right of residence and health care.
Tasks of the guardian:
The guardian represents the child in all legal matters. For example, they submit applications to authorities, file lawsuits, give consent for operations and manage the child's assets. The guardian also decides where the child lives and which school it attends.
