What do I need to relocate with my grandaughter whom I have legal custody of?
Full Question:
Answer:
As long as there is no official order in effect requiring notice or permission, a person granted permanant child custody is free to relocate. However, if the person who has physical custody wants to move, and a parent protests, the courts in most states have the authority to decide, on behalf of the children, whether the custodial person may move.
The courts typically consider the following factors:
-Whether the move will improve the child's school or community.
-Whether the custodian's motive was to harm the non-custodial parent.
-Whether the non-custodial parent's motive in resisting the move is to harm the custodial parent.
-Whether the non-custodial parent will still be able to have ongoing and significant contact with the child.
-The nature of the non-custodial parent's contact with the child so far. In cases that denied the move, a consistent theme is that the other parent has spent many hours each week with the child, consistently showed up for all his or her visitations, and established a close, supportive, and loving relationship with the child.
-The effect, either way, on the child's contact with grandparents and other people who are important influences in his or her life, as well as contact with the child's native culture.
If a child's parents and/or grandparents live in different states, one of several laws will determine the appropriate court to hear a custody or visitation case. If a valid custody or visitation decree has been entered in one state, the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act requires that another state must enforce and must not modify the decree. Another state may modify the decree only if the original state no longer has jurisdiction over the case or has declined jurisdiction to modify the custody or visitation decree. Congress amended this statute in 1998 to include a grandparent in the definition of "contestant."
If no state has made a valid custody determination, the provisions of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, as adopted by each state, will apply. A court in a particular state has power to hear a custody case if that state is the child's "home state" or has been the home state of the child within six months of the date the legal action was brought and at least one parent continues to reside in the state. Other situations include those in which a state with jurisdiction over a custody case declines jurisdiction or no other state may assert jurisdiction over the child.