Understanding the Process of Changing Your Child’s Residence
Are you wanting to change your child’s residence and you’re not exactly sure what the steps are? My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m an attorney with Wirth Law Office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve been doing family and criminal law for about seven years now and I want to help you make law easy by just talking a little bit about when and how the child relocation statutes come into effect and what you need to know to protect yourself.
Parental Relocation and Legal Considerations
So, parental relocation. It doesn’t matter unless you’re trying to move the child more than 75 miles away from their current home. This gets kind of dicey in joint custody situations where you have like equal parenting time, like a week-on-week off schedule. But it does and it doesn’t because at the same time, while it gets a little bit dicey, the dicey part is just the simple fact that if one of the parents is moving more than 75 miles away, week on week off isn’t going to work anymore.
And so now we have to figure out who’s going to have the kids the majority of the time. So, if you want to, if you are the custodial parent, either in a joint custody situation or I see this more often in situations where one parent does have the kids the majority of the time, either in a joint parenting plan or in, you know, they just have sole custody. If they want to move more than 75 miles from where the child originally lived, they have to give the non-custodial parent written notice of their intent to relocate.
Best Practices for Notifying the Other Parent
I tell my clients as soon as you possibly know that you’re going to be moving. Like honestly, really, even if it’s not a certainty but you think you’re going to, let them know. As soon as that becomes, as soon as that’s on the table, let them know. Give them as much notice as possible because it’s a best practice thing. And quite frankly, it’s just a respect thing. But if you do it at least in that 60, 90 days, you’re going to be covered.
I get that that’s not always possible. Sometimes you’re in a situation where, you know, you get a great job opportunity or something comes up and, you know, you got to just move right then. Give notice as soon as you can. Two days, two weeks, two months, you know, as soon as you possibly can, give the other side notice. And you have to do it in a way that you can prove.
The Importance of Documenting Your Notice
So it has to be more than just a phone call like, hey, just so you know, I’m moving. Bye, click. No, it has to be like, you can get away with a text message, maybe an email. I typically encourage my clients to do it as a formal letter. Sometimes I’ve even written that letter on my client’s behalf and I’ve sent it to the noncustodial parent in a way that can be tracked. You know, send it through the mail you, their tracking number, something like that, just to show that they received it, that they got notice.
And if need be, you can file that proof of notice with the court saying, hey, we’re moving. We gave them notice. The reason why is because the law allows the noncustodial parent to object. They’ve got to do it relatively quickly, and the court’s going to have a hearing on that relatively quickly thereafter. And it’s going to come down to the reason for the relocation.
Legal Support and Resources for Relocation
If you’re trying to stop a relocation and you can show that the parent is acting in bad faith, trying to keep you from your child, you might have a justifiable defense to keep them from relocating. In my experience, though, I’ve seen it treated to where the law heavily favors the relocating parent. I’ve only seen a couple of times where the parent wanting to relocate was not allowed to, or at least they weren’t allowed to do so with the child.
Start Your Legal Journey with an Initial Strategy Session
If you have questions about this or you want to move residence and you want to take the child with you, absolutely give us a call. I’m family law attorney Carl Birkhead. I’m with Wirth Law Office and want to help you make law easy. Call us today at 918-879-1681 to schedule a low-cost initial strategy session and get the guidance you need.
