relocating and custody

[Purplehonesty]

A relative of mine wishes to move 400 miles away from where she currently lives and works in order to be closer to us.

She has her ds 80% of the time - he sees his dad on a Saturday all day and overnight. They live about 10 mile apart presently.

Can she legally move? Can he stop her?

He left her for someone else and has been really nasty to her for the past few years and she just wants a clean break and to start again. Plus the area she is moving to is lovely, great education and quality of life for her son.

Just posting on her behalf to see what might happen when she tells him what she is planning. We guess he will go crazy and try and stop the move....

[Sidge]

I'm no expert and she may need to seek professional advice, but I doubt he can stop her moving. She will need to think about how she can facilitate contact; 400 miles is a long way to travel. How old is her son?

I moved last year but am only 90 miles from exH and he only has our DDs once a month for a weekend so contact isn't too tricky. I meet him halfway to split the driving as it was my choice to move away.

[Purplehonesty]

He is nearly 10.

She had hoped for him to see his dad every school holidays.

She would want to go and visit people there so she can go with him until he is old enough/confident enough to fly by himself.

[Purplehonesty]

She thinks when he is older he won't bother about seeing his dad. But then it will be his choice I suppose.

They don't have a brilliant relationship - like one outing every few months and the rest of the time spent playing computer games while his dad is asleep....

[Fourormore]

He can't stop her from moving but he can apply to the court to stop her from taking their son. 400 miles is a very long way and losing weekly contact is surely going to be a big deal for the child?

Has she spoken to her son about it? Is he happy to move so far away from his dad and only see him once every couple of months? Is mum happy to potentially lose most if not all of the school holiday time to dad? Does mum realise she will have to foot the bill for the travelling cost?

[BrieAndChilli]

She needs to tread very carefully, especially if he's a prick.
A colleague of mine (male) just won full custody of his children as his ex wife just turned round one day and said she was moving 2 hour away as she had gotten a new job and signed lease on a new house, ad put thier joint owned house on the market.
He went for custody, we all thought he would lose as elieved the mother normally wins unless a terrible mother but he actually won as the judge said it was the mothers decision to move and she should have consulted with the father first rather then presenting it as a done deal,
Neither parent was a bad parent

It is likely he will go for custody just to spite her but she needs to be prepared.

[BrieAndChilli]

Also choose the new school carefully as in this case the boys would have been moving from an outstanding school to a satisfactory school so standard of education would have dropped. (I know ofstead isn't a real idicToon of how great a school is but the law deals with facts and in the eyes of the law outstanding is better than satisfactory)

[Purplehonesty]

Thanks everyone will pass this on X