Fort Lauderdale Divorce Lawyer Blog

If you find yourself in a situation in which you need to move, and the custody of your child is the subject of a court order, there are certain steps you must take. First, go out and retain the services of a skilled South Florida child custody attorney. Even if the relocation is one made as a result of financial necessity (such as a sole income earner’s involuntary job transfer) or is entirely out of your control (such as a deportation), the law nevertheless says that you must go to court and file a petition requesting to relocate with the child. The court will assess the evidence and determine whether or not the move is in the best interest of the child. It is important that you wait until your petition is granted before making the move.

The case of S.B. and J.B. was an example of this type of dispute. The parents were divorced spouses who shared custody of a minor child. The divorce took place while the mother was pregnant, and the divorce settlement agreement stated that the unborn child would reside primarily with the mother.

Some time later, though, the mother’s new husband received a job transfer to South Florida. Unable to find a new job near home, the husband accepted the transfer, and the family planned to move to South Florida. The mother asked the court to approve the relocation. The court in these parents’ case ordered the parents to attempt to work out their timesharing issues on their own. S.B., even though the court hadn’t issued a relocation order, moved the child to South Florida anyway. This relocation led the couple to return to court. The judge denied the mother’s request to relocate the child. In addition, the judge also modified timesharing, ordering that the child reside primarily with the father. Specifically, the court awarded the father 70% timesharing.

Many people likely remember that, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that same-sex couples had a fundamental right to marry in all 50 states three summers ago. Two years later, the high court made another ruling that, although receiving less news media coverage than the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision, also had a massive impact on families with gay and lesbian parents. That more recent ruling, from the summer of 2017, declared that the states were required to list a same-sex spouse on a child’s birth certificate if they similarly listed a mother’s husband (even if the husband was not the biological father). While some may view these battles as primarily political or social in nature, the reality is that birth certificates play a very substantial role when it comes to determining child custody after a split. Regardless of your orientation, probably nothing is more important to you than your relationship with your children, which is why you should make sure you retain a knowledgeable Florida family law attorney to handle your child custody case.

The reason this issue of names on a birth certificate matters so much is because of the way that Florida goes about deciding who has what rights when it comes to custody of, and timesharing with, a child. The law in this state grants a parent a privacy right that entitles the parent to control the amount of contact a child has with someone who does not have the status of legal parenthood.

Obviously, this matters for some opposite-sex couples, where the child may live with two parent figures, one of whom has legal status and one of whom does not. It matters a great deal, though, for a lot of same-sex couples where many of their families are in that position. It matters because, although everyone wants to think that their current marriage/relationship will last forever, many don’t. If you’re gay or lesbian, you may find yourself one day completely cut off from the child you raised for a decade or more since he/she was a baby.

There are many things that parents likely want to accomplish with the outcome of any parental responsibility and timesharing case. Certainly, in order to facilitate stability for the child, one thing that you likely want is a lasting resolution. However, that can be complicated sometimes, given that life is fluid and circumstances change. When there are future changes in circumstances that you know are going to happen, you can plan ahead in order to deal with them in your timesharing order. In order to make sure that you get a parenting plan that best meets your child’s needs and protects your relationship with the child, be sure that you are working with an experienced Florida family law attorney.

J. and S. were a couple who had a timesharing case that involved an important future event: their child’s starting kindergarten. While the child had not started school at the time that the court entered a paternity, parental responsibility and timesharing order, that beginning of school was in the not-too-distant future. The trial court’s order on timesharing declared that the child should initially spend 50 percent of the time with each of the two parents. However, once the child began kindergarten, the timesharing schedule would cease to be workable, as the parents lived roughly 50 miles apart. The court order stated that, once school started, the father would have majority timesharing with the child, unless the mother moved closer to the father’s residence.

The mother opposed this ruling. One aspect that she challenged was the court’s ruling regarding what would transpire once the child began kindergarten. This part of the order was an improper “prospective” (in other words, future-looking) decision about proper timesharing. The trial court agreed and rescinded the previous timesharing order regarding what would happen after the child started kindergarten.