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Posted Jan 20th, 2012
What happens to a court ordered visitation schedule when I move to another state?

Additional Details:
I am the custodia parent of my three year old daughter. My ex has joint custody of our daughter with
me. I live in Florida and he lives in Georgia. I have been offered a job in Boston. He gets
visitation once a month with our little girl. Will I still be required to follow our same visitation
schedule if i move? It will be EXTREEMLY hard on me and my daughter drving 16 hours for visitation.
Legal Topic Area: Family Law in FL

This is one of the reasons Florida has very strict relocation procedures, and one of the main reasons you can't just relocate without a court-approved plan, even if your ex already lives outside of Florida. To relocate out of Florida, you MUST follow the procedures of Florida Statute 61.13001. That means you must prepare a petition that includes a number of specific things, one of which is the new visitation plan. The petition must be approved by the father (he has thirty days to approve it), or, if he objects, you'll have to go to court and attempt to get permission from a judge to move your daughter out of state. If you don't follow this procedure, you could very likely lose majority timeshare ("custody").


Answered on Jan 20th, 2012 at 12:05pm