A STEP BY STEP TIMELINE OF THE CHILD RELOCATION PROCESS
One of the first and most important things you want to do is get the notice and letter out. If you are going to be moving a substantial distance, which will affect your parenting time, I would advise you to file a motion to modify the parenting plan with the court. Hypothetically, if this were a long-distance move where the time each parent spends with the child or children would be substantially affected, it would not make sense to maintain the same schedule.
Therefore, it would be best to file a motion. For example, say two parties reside in Johnson County, and one of the parents wants to move to Shawnee County, Kansas, where Topeka is, assuming they have good reasons. In that situation, the parent who wants to move provides the letter and the notice via certified mail, return receipt requested, to the last known mailing address. In that situation, say the other side does not object to the move, you could technically then move at that point. However, they were both previously residing in Johnson County, where they shared nearly equal time. Obviously, now it will be tough for the parent who stays in Johnson County or in Topeka to maintain the same schedule.
Obviously, the other parent who is staying had Monday and Tuesday, and the parent who is moving has Wednesday and Thursday. There is no way the parents will be able to drive an hour or so back and forth to and from school a couple of times a week. Therefore, the best practice would be to file a motion. I realize it is a complex chain, but if you give the notice and move, then there is still an order out there that says you guys have to follow this parenting schedule. One party or the other is likely to allege that the other is not following it, and in that scenario, if you are the parent who moved and did not file anything to change the schedule, the parent who did not move will have the upper hand. They are going to say, “Look, I’m not the one who created this big flux. I didn’t move; they did. Not only did they move, now they’re trying to take away my parenting time without a court order or approval.”
That is why you start with a letter. It would be appropriate to then file a motion. That is why it would be wise to contact an attorney as soon as you begin to think about this as a serious thing. By preparing in advance, your attorney will have plenty of time to get some documents together for you and help collect evidence to attach to motions. Although you do not have to, you probably want to file a motion. If you do not file a motion and make a significant move that affects parenting time, the parent moving could incur the court's wrath for failing to notify the court or take any steps to change the plan.
In other words, the court would expect any adult to understand that a move will affect their schedule with the kids. You, as one parent, do not have the right to dictate the schedule unilaterally. Until you get that modified, that is a civil court order that you can be held in indirect contempt of court for not following. In Johnson County and most district courts in Kansas, you would file that motion, and then your attorney or the person pro se would request a hearing date on that motion. Chances are, if you give the notice, it will be hard to get a hearing date within 30 days. However, an attorney might say, “Hey, let’s just go ahead and file a motion before you give the notice.” That way, the notice corresponds to the hearing date. With those two things, a notice and a motion, you would eventually want to request a hearing in front of the judge so he can adjudicate the issue. Most judges in Johnson County would often order a third-party investigation of the case, the background, and the facts if both parties had good reasons to move and to object to the move.
That third-party investigation can appear through many different court orders. One might be to appoint a guardian ad litem, an attorney to act for the kids. Another might be the court ordering a custody evaluation through the local domestic court services. In that situation, like a GAL, you still have a third party coming in to investigate the facts. The court would likely order an investigation because you cannot have kids in court to testify. So when you have things like the kids' interests and how they might be affected, it would be tough for the court to get that information and evidence in. During the course of those investigations, third parties go out and talk to the teachers, daycare providers, and anyone that the child or children might have had contact with. The investigation will also include a conversation with the parents and, most importantly, a discussion with the kids.
Some questions the third parties may ask the kids would include, “How do you feel about it?” “Do you want to move?” “Are you excited about the move?” “Are you scared of the move?”, or “Are you terrified of the move and want to stay with the other parent?” One factor is the child's desires at a sufficient age and maturity. By conducting a third-party investigation, you can objectively and efficiently gather the viewpoints and feelings of those children. Otherwise, this is an evidentiary issue. A parent cannot go to court and say, “My child told me this, that, and the other,” because that is traditionally considered hearsay, which is inadmissible in court.
That is why in this move situation, the letter and motion are so important. No matter what, you do have to at least get the letter out thirty days before the move. That is a clear statutory deadline. At that first initial hearing, you are going to hear the judge say, “Yeah, this is going to be a tough case for me to decide,” and that is true. These are usually the most complex cases for judges to decide, because typically, both parties have good reasons. And at the end of the day, they are going to have to ruin somebody’s day. That is why the judge will say, “With that all said, I’m going to have somebody look into this objectively.”
An officer of the court is highly trusted and respected, and includes guardian ad litem, or GALs, and people who work at court services. They are trained to go out, gather information, and present it to the judge, typically offering a recommendation. Usually, that GAL or court representative will say, “Hey, this is what I think about mom or dad’s request to move.” Whatever those reports and recommendations are, they will carry significant weight in the courtroom. That would be significantly probative of what the judge would likely do, and the decision the judge would likely make would more than likely follow the investigation's recommendation.
Moving is by no means a simple process. But there are situations where people get these things done civilly and amicably. There are times when parents realize that a move may be in the kids' best interest, and so they can agree on all that. There are situations, more rare than not, where the other side might not object, and the parties might be able to talk out a scenario where one party realizes, “You know what? This probably is good for the kids to move, and still maintain a good chunk of time.” If you do have parents who live far apart like that, the courts would traditionally give one or two weekends a month, so one weekend could be spent with whichever parent is closest. Again, a situation where you had parties here in Kansas, one side petitions to move, and the court grants the motion. The court enables not only the move but also the kids to move with that parent, so the parent in Kansas now becomes a long-distance parent.
Typically, that parenting plan would say, “The parent in Kansas can have one weekend a month in Kansas with their kids, to be arranged,” with specific provisions on how they coordinate and schedule that time. Traditionally, if you ask for it, the courts will allow that same parent to have a weekend at the children’s home base. For example, one parent moves to Boulder, Colorado, and the other is in Kansas as the long-distance parent. Typically, the plan would state that the parent in Kansas gets one weekend a month in Kansas, and, if they want, they can elect to stay in a hotel and go to Colorado for one weekend a month.
As one can appreciate, some people, for financial reasons, cannot afford to coordinate two trips like that. That is the basis of the month-to-month. However, courts also traditionally try to give the long-distance parent as much time as possible during all school breaks and summer vacations. It makes sense because they do not have to worry about getting the kids to school every day, and so on. In most cases, the court remains fair and gives the parent with primary custody some of the summer. The rationale is that it is not very fair to have one parent handle extracurricular activities, homework, and laundry during the school year, only to have the kids be off on vacation with the other parent in the summer. The courts still give the residential parent some time over the summer, but, assuming the facts warrant, they will typically try to carve out as much of that time as possible for the other parent. They work to do this while being cognizant that both parties deserve some time with the kids during the school breaks to travel and have fun.