Moving after a divorce can become complicated when you share a child with your former spouse, especially when a new job, family responsibilities, school needs, or a change in living arrangements could take you farther away and affect your current parenting arrangement.
At Kofsky Law Office, we help Florida parents address relocation concerns before making a move, while also handling family law matters where parenting, financial, or other important family issues become disputed.
What Relocation Can Mean for Your Family
A move that creates greater distance between parents can affect much more than where a child lives, since it can change school routines, transportation arrangements, holidays, family relationships, and the amount of time a child spends with each parent. When you have an existing parenting plan, any move more than 50 miles from your current residence will require an agreement or court order authorizing the move. If you and the child’s other parent were not married, the mother may be able to relocate without agreement or court action. A father who must initiate an action to establish paternity and timesharing to establish his parental rights and timesharing.
Logistics matter, so before making firm plans, parents should think about how the proposed move could affect the child now and in the years ahead, particularly when the move would make the current parenting schedule difficult to maintain.
When a Proposed Move Becomes Disputed
Section 61.13001 of the Florida Statutes permits relocation where parents who agree about a move to work together on a new parenting arrangement that accounts for distance, transportation, school breaks, holidays, and other changes that come with living farther apart.
When the other parent does not agree, the situation can become much more difficult, especially when both parents have strong concerns about the child’s routine, relationships, education and commuting time, and future. The most important consideration is the best interest of the child, and those interests are determined by a fact-intensive review of your unique circumstances.
What Factors Can Matter?
Every family has different circumstances, which means relocation disputes can involve several important concerns, that may including:
- The child’s relationship with each parent, siblings, and extended family, along with how greater distance could affect those relationships.
- The child’s education, daily routine, emotional well-being, and ability to adjust to a different home or community.
- The ability to create a workable parenting schedule that allows the child to maintain a meaningful relationship with both parents.
- Each parent’s reasons for supporting or opposing the move, along with the opportunities or changes the relocation could bring for the family.
- Job opportunities available for the non-relocating parent at the proposed destination.
These cases can become especially difficult when parents disagree about what arrangement would serve the child’s best interests, since decisions about distance, parenting time, school, travel, and family relationships can have lasting effects.
What Happens If a Parent Objects?
When one parent wants to move and the other parent objects, what began as a personal or family decision can quickly become a serious parenting dispute that requires both sides to explain their concerns and support their positions.
A disagreement can involve questions about the child’s current relationship with each parent, the reasons behind the proposed move, future parenting arrangements, transportation costs, school schedules, and whether both parents can continue to play meaningful roles in the child’s life.
Steps to Take Before Making a Move
Before committing to a new home, job, or school, it can help to consider how the move wouldaffect your current parenting arrangement and whether distance would make regular parentingtime, holidays, transportation, or other responsibilities harder to manage. Relocation mattersare given priority and must be heard within 90 days under section 61.13001 or, where amotion for temporary relocation is filed, within thirty days.
When communication is appropriate, discussing the proposed move with the other parent early can also help identify concerns before plans become final, while speaking with a family law attorney can help you better understand the issues that could affect your situation.
Discuss Your Relocation Case With Kofsky Law Office
Family law matters can range from more routine concerns to cases involving serious parenting and financial disputes, and Kofsky Law Office handles both while also working with high-conflict divorce, high-net-worth divorce, relocation matters, and complex prenuptial and postnuptial agreement challenges.
When a case involves disputed parenting arrangements, substantial assets, difficult financial questions, or strong disagreements between parents, careful preparation can become especially valuable because the decisions made during the case can affect your finances, your relationship with your child, and your family’s future. Kofsky Law Office has litigated many relocation cases and understand the planning, presentation and legal challenges they present.
If you are planning to move with your child or have concerns about a proposed relocation, call 561-407-0703 (Jupiter) or 772-210-7022 (Stuart), or visit kofskylawoffice.com to schedule a consultation and discuss your case.
