The reality that your former spouse may relocate with your child can be scary. You do not want to jeopardize your relationship with your child by having them far away from you. This can affect your overall relationship since you are not given the parental bonding time that you need to develop this bond. Children need their parents to guide them. If you are far away, you may not feel like part of your child’s life. This can be an emotional time for parents. For these situations, you should work with an attorney to prevent your child from moving with their custodial parent. Although you may not be granted physical custody of the child, you may still obtain legal custody. Legal custody gives you the right to be involved in major decisions in the child’s life. Their relocation is a major change in their life that you should be involved in.
If your former spouse has physical custody of the child, it makes them the custodial parent, which means that the child technically resides with them. Based on your arrangement, your child may also have time with you and stay at your home. The custodial parent is the one who has more time with the child but you can still fight to prevent your child from being relocated.
What does the judge consider in court?
You have the ability to bring your former spouse to court in order to prevent them from relocating with your child. When courts become involved in the relocation of a child, a judge will decide on the case for you. They should act in the best interests of the child since that is the main concern for these situations. The court should try to determine what the best option for the child is based on a variety of factors. A relocation can have a big impact on a child’s life so they take into account all factors that can affect them. If they believe it may have a negative impact, the court may rule that they are not in favor of this option. The court system believes that children should still have an open form of communication with a parent that does not have custody to allow for possible rehabilitation of their relationship in the future. Visitation rights allow for this situation. When a parent wants to take the child to a different area, this may disrupt the visitation rights of the other parent, which can cause the court to rule against the relocation.
Before taking any sort of legal action, it is important to discuss your legal matter with an experienced attorney. Contact The Radol Law Firm to discuss any divorce and family law matters you may be faced with.