How Can I Get Approved for Relocating with My Child?

After your divorce, you may want to move on and give yourself a fresh start in life. However, your actions to accomplish this cannot be so severe if you have a child involved. For one, you cannot pack your belongings and move out of the state of Tennessee on a whim, with no notice or permission. With that being considered, please follow along to find out how to get approval for relocating with your child and how one of the proficient Clarksville child relocation lawyers at Fendley and Birch can help strengthen your chances.

Do I need to get approval to relocate with my child?

The simple answer is, yes, you must get approval to relocate a far distance or outside state borders with your child. This is whether you get your former spouse’s explicit consent or formal permission from the Tennessee family court that handled your initial custody case.

Importantly, this standard applies regardless of whether you were granted primary residential custody over your child, while your former spouse only has visitation rights. This is because the court may still have ordered joint legal custody, in which you have a 50/50 say in important decisions in your child’s life, including where they live.

Secondly, this stands regardless of whether you are the mother or father of your child. Tennessee family law holds that each parent shares equal rights toward accessing and being part of their child’s life. In other words, there is no longer the societal assumption that mothers take on caregiver responsibilities more and thereby should spend more time with their child.

How can I improve my chances of relocating with my child?

The Tennessee family court works under the assumption that your child will benefit most from maintaining a close relationship with both their parents.

Therefore, it may be hard to convince them that relocating further away from their other parent will not affect their relationship and overall well-being. And so, to make the best argument for this, you must try to prove the following:

• You must prove that your child will benefit from this relocation:
  • The new location has better educational opportunities for your child.
  • The new location has easier access to the special healthcare your child needs.
  • The new location is a safer municipality and personal living space for your child.
  • The new location has a job opportunity that will allow you to offer your child more financial stability.
  • The new location is closer to your extended family members who are willing to help with childcare.
• You must prove that you and your former spouse can maintain a feasible parenting time arrangement:
  • The new location is a reasonable distance for your former spouse to commute to for parenting time.
  • Slight restructuring of the schedule can give your former spouse the same amount of parenting time.

Before this gets too much, please seek the guidance and counsel of one of the talented Clarksville family lawyers from Fendley and Birch. We will work to the best of our ability to minimize or eliminate this mess from your immediate worry.