Legal Question in Family Law in California
Hello. My sons father and I separated February 2015. My son have been living with me since then. His father was residing locally a few months after the separation, but then decided to leave the Bay Area to live in Los Angeles in November 2015. He had not come to visit his son prior to February 23 2016, when he traveled back to the Bay Area to file for custody.
The issue that has arisen is that I was offered a promotional position with a very prestigious retail company in Nevada. My plans were to move to Las Vegas March 6, 2016 and begin working by March 10th. My sons father found out about this and filed for custody on February 23rd.
My question is, can I take my son with my as long as I come back to California for any custody court dates?
Also, should I allow my son to go stay with his father for a while, now that he's filed for custody?
Is there any other advice that someone can offer? This is all very sudden, and I don't understand why he is doing this now. I have no problem with my sons father seeing his son, and my intentions were not to take him away from him. In fact, I will be 2-3 hours closer to him.
Any advice is greatly appreciated
2 Answers from Attorneys
If your son's father has filed for custody you need to read the back of the summons and make sure to comply with the automatic restraining orders. One of those is that you cannot leave the state without the father's consent or a court order. It was very wise for him to file before you left, otherwise he would have found himself litigating in Nevada once you relocated the child there. I cannot recommend strongly enough that you get an attorney. There is a good chance that you can persuade a court to allow you to move if you make arrangements to assure you will bring the child back for any court ordered proceedings and for any other reason the court orders the child returned to the state. But only if you have an attorney put together the paperwork and argues the case for you. Otherwise the court may just refuse to hear it until a regular hearing several months away.
As for time with his father, you definitely want to look cooperative and in the eyes of the court be the parent who is most likely to foster a good relationship between the child and the other parent. So your filing with the court should include time with the father in your proposed orders. You'll need an attorney to guide you through how to set up a good proposed order.
The crux of developing an appropriate time share plan rests with making the child available for regular contact with father. The father has a history of limited contact, then it would be easier to construct a timeshare visitation plan that would represent the actual representational time share found in this case.
Please meet with an experienced family law attorney to assist you on this complicated family law 'move away' case.
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