If a New York Court granted you custody of your child, you may assume that you are entitled to move the child wherever you want to go. However, that is inaccurate. Why can’t you do what you want with your own child once you have an Order of Custody? Here are a few reasons why:
Disruption to Child: Moving a child interferes with the child’s access to the other parent. If you move your child from New York to Los Angeles, for example, it would be disruptive to the child’s life to exchange the child with his other parent for visitation every other week. The other parent could not liberally visit the child without great expense and effort.
Interference with Parenting Time: Moving a child away from the other parent increases the required travel time to see the child. If you move the child from New York to New Jersey, even if it is across the river, you may have increased the other parent’s commute time to over an hour if you used to live down the street. The result is that you have cut their parenting time.
Imposing Parenting Time Expense on Other Parent: If you move to a different state that is far away, this becomes more obvious. It becomes expensive for the other parent to pay for plane tickets to come see the child or for the child to come to see the parent. Courts have been known to grant a downward modification in child support to accommodate the added expense on the parent who must travel to see their child. Also, if the traveling parent decides to move closer to the child but cannot find a comparable paying job, the Court has also granted a downward modification of child support. The Court’s reasoning is that it was the custodial parent who decided to move and therefore they are to bear the expense of their decision.
If you are considering moving your child to another state and have been granted custody by a New York Court or you are the noncustodial parent who objects to the move, contact Diana Mohyi Attorney at Law, to obtain Counsel on what your rights are.