Visitation Rights May be Affected by One Parent’s Decision to Move Out of the Area

Parental custody and visitation can be a contentious issue in divorce proceedings.  In general, the court will grant the noncustodial parent reasonable visitation rights unless it is shown that visitation would be detrimental to the child.  Whether you have visitation rights or primary custody of your children, you should be aware of the implication a change in residence may have on your responsibilities to your children and your ex-spouse.

For example, if you have primary custody of the children and live near your ex-spouse and you decide to move away with your children, your responsibility for ensuring your ex-partner continues to have reasonable visitation rights will increase.  The court has broad discretion to modify visitation orders to lessen the impact of the loss of contact with the non-custodial parent in these situations.  For example, the court may choose to increase visitation rights for the non-custodial parent during school vacations.  The court could choose to allocate the financial burden for paying for the children’s travel costs to you.  The court could also deny the custodial parent the right to move at all.

However, let’s assume you have primary custody and your ex-spouse decides to move out of the area.  In this case, the court may decide to modify the visitation schedule to provide for longer, but less frequent, visitation periods.

If you are interested in learning more about California custody and visitation, please contact us.  Please remember that each individual situation is unique and results discussed in this post are not a guarantee of future results.  While this post may include legal issues, it is not legal advice.  Use of this site does not create an attorney-client relationship.