the law in that area is very interesting
as well and they’re called either
relocation cases or move away cases and
it could happen in a situation where
parents
share 50 50 custody
or one parent has 70 percent custody and
the other parent has 30 percent custody
but let’s assume that the custodial
parent or one parent wants to relocate
well the court’s going to first
determine is that parent moving for
good reasons or are they moving just to
interfere
with the relationship so assuming
there’s a good faith reason for the move
then the court addresses all the factors
that bear on a child’s best interest in
relocating or not so in a relocation or
a move away case the court has to assume
that dad is living in one geographical
area and mother is living in another
geographical area and then a decision
has to be made
based upon lots of different factors
such as the child’s age their
developmental needs their relationship
with each parent the parents
relationship
with each child and with one another the
child’s relationship to the community
they’re living in where they’re moving
to
the distance whether if they’re moving
out of the country
is there going to be a cultural
difference in a language difference so
there is a whole host of factors that
the court needs to address and weigh
very carefully in deciding what’s in a
child’s best interest so those cases can
be extraordinarily heart-wrenching
because a parent even if they have
30 percent custody if a parent is going
to move to another country it’s going to
dramatically change that relationship
but sometimes a parent needs to move
because of a
new marriage or new relationship or a
new job or for the support of their
family so all those things have to be
balanced and with respect to
the non-custodial parent and the parent
that is left behind the court needs to
accommodate that parent so the parent
can maintain
a relationship with the child
so the one piece of advice i can give to
parents that do seek to move away
is
if you want to move away have a very
good reason to want to move and make
sure that you were able to demonstrate
to the court that you will facilitate
the relationship with the non-custodial
parent
if you are successful in moving away the
worst thing you could do is to go to
court and to bad mouth that parent
especially if there’s not good
justification to do that because that is
going to significantly reduce your
chances of getting custody
but with that being said those are one
of my favorite cases to try because
they’re factually intensive and they’re
interesting and you really get a lot of
insight into
the family and the dynamics of the
family