Legal Question in Family Law in California
Modification of visitations
My ex. inititally had supervised visits which increased now to (unsupervised) two days a week for three hours each day and every other weekend Friday thru Sunday. He's had this scheduled for the last 5 months. I've recently moved out of the current county that we live in and would like to request a modification to the order. Based on change of address. My ex. now wants 50% of the time. My justification for disagreeing would be that we live in another county. How would the court/judge look at this?
4 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Modification of visitations
Your question is vague as to the location, and about the age of the child. You may be burndened with transportation. Better you have a look at family code which says that court should prefer an award about the custody of child to the parent who will make it easy for the other party to have meaningful contact with the child.
Re: Modification of visitations
there is no way to tell but as a general rule they like to change things as little as possible. they do not view sudden and major changes as good for the child, depending on the age.
Re: Modification of visitations
With little doubt you will get a modification since you have effectively prevented the father from seeing the child(ren) for his short visits during the week. But you may not like the modification. A judge may order you to transport the child(ren) for all visits to the Father or maybe he will change the custody of the child to the Father. You didn't say why Father had supervised visits, if it was merely because of the age of the child, look for the judge to be unhappy with you for moving. You didn't say why you moved so you better have a good excuse for the judge to explain why you would interfere with the Father's visitation by moving. You may also have problems is you moved without consent of the Father or the court, you didn't say. You might look at the Family Code which says that the court should prefer an award custody to the party who will make it easiest for the other parent to have meaningful contact with the child. Good Luck, Pat McCrary
Re: Modification of visitations
As is typical, you are very vague as to locations, age of the child, reasons for move, etc.,therefore I will assume it very likely that the two of you will share the transportation burden.