Feeling unable to leave a specific area because your child’s other parent lives there can be limiting in many ways. It can prevent you from getting a fresh start and providing a better life for your child.
When opportunity knocks, turning it down based on your former partner’s wishes stings. However, with a lawyer’s help, you may be able to relocate with your child, even if the other parent is not on board.
To speak with a New Jersey child relocation attorney, set up a consultation with Weiner Law Group, PLLC, today.
Our lawyers have represented clients in family law cases for nearly 30 years, and our knowledge and experience can help you relocate the right way. Contact us today to get started.
How to Win a Child Relocation Case in NJ
To position yourself best in a child relocation case, consider the following steps:
- Understand how custody law works,
- Try speaking with your co-parent to negotiate before going to court, and
- Take your co-parent to court before moving.
It is essential that a parent not move away with a child before a court modifies custody.
Understanding Custody
To win a relocation case, you should understand:
- Factors courts consider in custody cases,
- What rights parents have in New Jersey,
- How custody works,
- Child relocation laws,
- Custody order violations, and
- How to modify custody.
With this background, ensure you know what your custody order says.
Custody Factors
Courts rely on the child’s best interests to award custody, evaluating factors like:
- How well the parents can work together;
- What the child wants;
- The relationship between the child, each parent, and any siblings;
- Any history of abuse, domestic violence, or harm to the child or someone in the child’s household;
- The child’s needs and the parent’s ability to meet them,
- The stability of the home environment; and
- Where the parents live relative to each other.
The child’s best interests depend on all relevant facts. So, one highly consequential factor may outweigh several less significant factors.
Parental Rights
Every parent has the right to raise their children unless they surrender or the state terminates their parental rights. Surrendering or terminating parental rights must be in the child’s best interests, too.
Custody Arrangements
Notably, if parents jointly agree to a specific custody arrangement, the court must approve the agreement unless it is contrary to the child’s interests. Generally, parents can share joint custody, or one parent can have sole custody.
Physical custody
Physical custody refers to who primarily cares for the child. The child lives with a parent who has physical custody on an approximately full-time basis, making that parent a custodial parent. Joint custody may involve parents sharing physical and legal custody, or only sharing legal custody.
Legal custody
A parent with legal custody has a legal right to decide important things about the child’s life, including where the child lives.
Even if you do not have physical custody of a child, parents typically retain legal custody unless there is a history suggesting shared custody would place the child or the other parent at risk.
Sole custody may involve the parent without custody having parenting time or having no rights related to the child.
Parenting time and visitation
New Jersey uses the terms “visitation” and “parenting time” to refer to the time a parent without legal custody spends with their child. Even if a parent lacks legal custody, court-ordered parenting time is a right.
Your Custody Order
When you have joint custody, you share legal custody. Since legal custody includes the right to decide where a child lives, a joint custody order typically limits the relocation of children.
If you have sole custody, you may still need to check specific provisions in the order. Even some sole custody provisions limit how far away a parent can move a child without modifying the custody order.
Child Relocation Laws
Several laws apply to parental attempts to relocate children without consent. First, you violate the law by denying parenting time, a common result of moving away with the child.
Special rules apply to children who are New Jersey natives or who have lived in the state for five years or longer.
If the child is old enough to reason and express that they do not want to leave the state, the parent cannot remove them against their will. If the child is not old enough, the parent cannot remove the child without both parents’ consent unless the court orders otherwise.
Second, if a child is likely to be removed from the jurisdiction—to another state or country—a parent can request the state take physical custody of the child.
Depending on the custody order, the state may return the child to the other parent’s custody or keep the child in state custody while any legal issues are resolved.
And if you conceal your child’s location from your partner, a court must hold a custody hearing if the other parent asks. This concealment may be justified if the child’s life or safety were threatened but counts against you in most other circumstances.
Custody Order Violations
If you have a custody order, that order is a private law. Violating that private law may subject you to serious penalties. The other parent may request the court enforce the custody order, and the court may hold you in contempt of court. Contempt can lead to fines or jail time—and potentially justify modifying custody in the other parent’s favor.
Custody Modification
Generally, to modify custody, you need to prove that circumstances have substantially changed since the order went into effect and that the modification you are requesting is in the child’s best interests.
That you are attempting to relocate may qualify as a substantial change in circumstances, especially if you have a concrete reason to move to a particular place.
That leaves the question of the child’s best interests, which is highly fact-specific. Consider how the move will affect your child’s:
- Relationships with other family and community members,
- Education,
- Mental and physical health, and
- Current and future opportunities.
You may be able to propose alternatives, like video chatting, to help maintain the child’s relationship with their other parent.
Negotiating Terms with Your Co-Parent
Since the law is explicit that a court should approve any custody arrangement in the child’s best interests that both parents agree to, talking to your co-parent about your move is a good place to start.
Good faith negotiation also communicates that you understand minimizing open conflict with your co-parent helps protect your children.
Negotiations may involve trade-offs like having the child live with the other parent over the summer or exchanging holiday time. Depending on your relationship, you might sit down together to negotiate with your New Jersey family law attorneys.
If direct negotiations do not work, you may still avoid courtroom litigation through mediation. Your lawyer prepares you for and guides you through mediation, where you sit down and have a conversation led by a neutral mediator who is not otherwise involved in the case.
Going to Court
If your co-parent will not agree to a move that you know is in the child’s best interests, you can request a court modify your custody order. You can still come to an agreement outside of court at any time, even after you request a modification.
If you do not settle, you may need to attend a court hearing. There, you explain why you are planning to move and how the move is in the child’s best interests.
Then, your co-parent will have a chance to attack your reasons for moving and explain why they believe the move is not in the child’s best interests.
Making the Best Relocation Case
Carefully following the steps the law establishes before you can relocate with a child may complicate the moving process, but it is essential to protect your rights to your child. For assistance making a case for (or against!) relocation, contact Weiner Law Group today.