Move away with a child when 50/50 shared care

[Hope4newlife]

I have heard the recent court treats moving abroad or domestic just the same.

I may move to America, Europe or within the UK but couple of hours far depending on my job or who I am going to be with.

What I want to know is will 50% shared care affect moving away with my child? or no such different than 36% overnight contact?

You can’t have 50:50 care with a huge distance between that’s obvious

Think of the child(ren)

I doubt they would let you if you've 50/50 shared care - it's not far on the child or the other parent.

You'd prob need to consider a system like the dc being with one parent all of term time & the other parent for holidays if you want to share their time as evenly as possible. Aside from them being at a boarding school in the middle (& you share weekends) I can't see how it could be 50:50 if you are living a long distance apart. As Pps have said, what will work best for the dc?

How do you see this working in practise? When will your DC have contact going forwards? It obviously can't remain as 50:50.

The courts will almost certainly block you from taking the children abroad, they cannot stop you moving within the UK, but they will not treat you favourably if it ends up back in court and you are the one who has moved any significant distance from the original family location.

You are a parent, think of your children first, rather than trying to stop them spending time with their other parent.

Unless you’re homeschooling, or have an arrangement where you have them 26 weeks of a year all outside of term-time (and term time is 39 weeks so you’d have 13 weeks to ‘make up’ in additional weekends) then no, of course it won’t work!

Contact/primary residence is decided on what is best for the child.

Not what the parent wants.

The courts treat domestic/international the same because they look at the stability for the child first. To a child it doesn’t matter if you’re in Paris or Preston, if both are a 4-hr+ journey away from their school and main residence.

The other parent can get a prohibitive steps order to prevent you removing DC from current school/nursery and moving far away enough to prevent 50:50 being feasible.

Also removing a child from Scotland within the UK will see you in trouble with the courts.

@MatildaIThink

The courts will almost certainly block you from taking the children abroad, they cannot stop you moving within the UK, but they will not treat you favourably if it ends up back in court and you are the one who has moved any significant distance from the original family location.

You are a parent, think of your children first, rather than trying to stop them spending time with their other parent.

Yes, they can stop you moving within the UK.

my question is if existing court order with 50/50 and I want to relocate with the child for whatever good reason, would this be successful or court could order leave the child with father and I see whenever I can?

If your ex didn't agree then it would go to court to be decided and it could go either way. Yes it could be ordered that the child remains in the current school and lives predominantly with the local parent and the "moving away parent" would have agreed contact.

I could suggest a lot of sacrifices for the child with father such as full time on holidays while the child stays with me during the term time. If this is not just possible to even move 6hours away, then I shall forget about my new life; marriage with a distance relationship, getting a job in that city, etc.

@Hope4newlife

my question is if existing court order with 50/50 and I want to relocate with the child for whatever good reason, would this be successful or court could order leave the child with father and I see whenever I can?

If you have a 50-50 arrangement, then yes, if you wanted to relocate with your child then it obviously couldn’t be 50-50 any more.

And if your child’s other parent says they don’t agree that relocating with you is in their child’s best interest, and that they should remain where they currently go to school etc, and they want to challenge for full residence, then a court would likely grant that. So you’d lose 50-50 with your child, and you’d realistically only be able to see them some weekends and holidays.

If the other parent didn’t mind you relocating that would be different but seems unlikely going from a 50-50 split.

You can have lots of “good reasons” (or at least, ones that appear good to you) for moving so far, but none of them will make the slightest difference to your DC or their relationship with their father.

What can be so compelling about moving that would override their happiness? Are any of your reasons so vitally important to you that you’d feel justified leaving your DC with your ex and you seeing them less (perhaps just in the school holidays)?

If not, why are you trying to impose your wants and wishes over the best interests of your child/ren?

What will happen if you persuade the court to let you take them and then the relationship you moved them for breaks down? Or your new job makes you redundant, or your kids just can’t settle? Will the DC’s life in this six hours away location be materially better?

Yes it would hold more significant weight in court that you already share 50/50 residency of the court. If the other parent doesn’t agree and it goes to court it will be on you to prove why it’s in the best interest of the child to be removed from his/her father, the key word there being the child not the parent. The parent moving away so she can live with another partner, or closer to their own family is not deemed as a reasonable excuse to move a child away from the other parent. If the other parent did agree, it would be likely that you would be responsible for all travel arrangements to get the child to and from the other parent. It’s really not fair that the child will never be able to have any school holiday time with his school mates or do any local activities if he has to spend every single holiday with his other parent.
The courts are very backed up at the moment , it will take a good while to even be heard and will cost you a small fortune if the other parent fights it and you likely lose. You will be able to move but not the child.

Quite simply, the court will do what is in the best interests of the child. Not what you want. Not what father wants. If the move away isn't in their best interests as it'll be detrimental to their relationship, then you better believe they will block you.

My ex wasn't allowed to move following my prohibited steps order. I suspect if she asks to move again they will say sure you can! But leave your daughter with your ex. I would love her to bring it again as I think that would equal a lives with order for me. Be careful what you wish for.

@Hope4newlife

I could suggest a lot of sacrifices for the child with father such as full time on holidays while the child stays with me during the term time. If this is not just possible to even move 6hours away, then I shall forget about my new life; marriage with a distance relationship, getting a job in that city, etc.

If I was cynical I would be thinking your move benefits you loads more than your ex.

You get term time, and no need for child care
S/he gets all the holidays and all the childcare

I suspect if this came to court, the most likely outcome would be that your children would end up living with their father and spending time with you in school holidays, just based on what you’ve put here.

To get permission to relocate the children, you’d need to convince the court that a move would be in their best interests. If you’re wanting to move for your own desire for a new life, and to be with a partner, that’s not a good reason to uproot your children’s lives entirely and permanently change their relationship with their father for the worse, as well as the upheaval around schools etc. In fact it’s quite a selfish way of thinking.

If you have 50/50 care and want to keep it that way, you’re likely going to have to resign yourself to living in the same area as your ex until your child is an adult. Unless you have a very accommodating ex who’s willing to work out some kind of arrangement with you outside the court process.

You could try fighting this in court but unless you can prove that the dad’s care is severely deficient in some way, it’s not going to be an easy case to make. As other posters have said, the stability and best interests of the children will be the paramount consideration.

You could move away without the children and see them in the school holidays. But I can’t imagine that’s what you really want.

I think you’d be well advised to manage your partner’s expectations about your ability to relocate. Sorry, OP.