Legal Question in Family Law in Virginia

Re: Visitation

Unless the paper with the visitation specifics is

adopted by the court as its order, the notarized paper means little, and, of course, you are certainly not required to sign it or anything else relating to the matter, unless you wish to.

However, if you are removing yourself and son to Texas against the wishes of the father, he may want to petition the court to have the existing order modified to include the visitation provisions which he is now attempting to get you to agree to without the necessity of court action.

Parents with joint legal custody are permitted to work these kinds of issues out between them- selves without involving the court if they can manage it.

Re: Visitation

You certainly do not need to sign the paper proferred by your son's husband, but you may wish to consider doing so anyway.

Moving your son away from his father may be seen by the Court as you imposing a restriction on the father's access to his son(regardless of how important it is for you). In this case the Court may well order a visitation schedule more onerous than the one proferred by Dad, or even order a change of custody.

Thus, if Dad's request is reasonable, you may be well-advised to agree rather than allow the Court to decide on what may turn out to be a more restrictive schedule.

In either case, be sure to give all required notices of the intended move, both to the Court and to Dad in a timely fashion (usually at least 30 days in advance).

Good Luck!