Legal Question in Family Law in Virginia
residence for school
My ex husband and I have joint physical and legal custody of our children. We wrote this out and had it notorized. When we first seperated he continued to live in the home we had shared and I did not want the kids to change schools so I drove them to school. A year later he decided to buy a new house and move to another county. The children changed schools at this time. I continued to drive them to school and even changed jobs to be closer to them during the day. I remarried and my husband and I wanted to buy a new home. We could not find anything suitable in our price range in the county where the ex lives. The ex put his house on the market to sell. When he got a contract on his house he was unsure of where he was going to move. We continued to look for a home in the county where he was living. He finally decided that he was moving to an apartment in a different school district. We decided to seriously look for a new house. We could not find one in the childrens current school district. We found one in another county. The schools are good there also. We feel that since we will be in a house the children should go to school in our district. ex does not agree. what should we do?
3 Answers from Attorneys
Re: residence for school
File for sole physical custody.
Re: residence for school
Of course you can petition the court for sole custody... however, before doing that I would consider very seriously MEDIATION, MEDIATION,MEDIATION!!! this is one of the many issues that will arise in the course of your relationship with your ex-husband: learning how to deal with each other when you have complete opposite opinions is going to be key for many years to come. If you file for sole custody, the judge would most likely appoint a guardian ad litem who would then look into the situation. "the best interest of the children" is going to be the standard applied by the court. Many months in the meantime will go by and I feel that you will get a much better, more amicable and quicker solution through mediation.
Good luck.
Re: residence for school
Joint legal and physical custody meeans you can work it out in the best interests of the children. It seems you made sacrifices (like letting the kids use the marital home as primary residence for school purposes). It also seems like he is acting like the physical custodian in that the children seem to follow him in changing schools. Nevertheless joint custody means it may be his turn to make sacrifices in the children's best interests. Going to court is the wrong move as if one of you challenges the other then one of you will lose physical custody.
Since he is not cooperating with you the way a joint physical custodian should, maybe it is time for a custody move. Just beware. Ultimately there is no way to force the situation other than taking the kids out of the school he enrolls them in and doing it in your district and then making him live with it. I have no idea how practical that would be.
In any case Good Luck.
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