QLD Relocating Teenage Children - No Family Court Orders

[Kaylee01]

Hi, thank you in advance for answering my legal question.

My ex-partner and myself both reside in the same town and have a soon-to-be 17-year-old and a 15-year-old. I am considering relocating to another city for a variety of reasons - my career, future careers, study options and job prospects for my boys, to reside closer to supportive family members and change of lifestyle.

I have not discussed much with my ex due to not knowing whether my application to transfer has or hasn't been successful. Today I found out it was successful, for beginning 2016.

To cut a long story short, he found out and rang immediately to inform me that I could not legally do this. We have never had any family court orders put in place and have only ever had a private agreement in relation to child support, visitation etc. He was not only concerned about visitation, but very concerned about paying full child support - which is a private matter and I'm sure options will be discussed fairly and agreed upon at some stage.

Both boys have expressed to me they want to move with me; older boy doesn't have a great relationship with dad but younger does.

Could he stop this relocation (which is within the same state) from occurring? If so, how?

Thank you.

 

[AllForHer]

If the relocation takes place without the father's agreement, the father will be able to apply for a recovery order through the court, which would likely be accompanied by an application for parenting orders, as well.

Realistically, the boys would likely be considered old enough and informed enough to decide for themselves about their care arrangements, and parenting orders are only applicable until the children turn 18, which isn't that far away, so it would be puzzling to go through the very slow, very expensive court process to get orders that might only really have effect for 12 months by the time the matter is finalised.

However, it's 'about the principle of the thing' for some parents, which can make things a bit unpredictable.

To help you avoid the horrid court process, have you considered pitching care arrangements that include provisions for how often the kids would see their dad if you relocated, and how those arrangements would be facilitated?

For example, maybe the kids could go to their dad's one weekend a month, half school holidays, and every long weekend, with Skype calls in between? Maybe you could drive half way, or halve the costs of travel, etc?

It might also be worthwhile doing a child-inclusive mediation with Relationships Australia, which involves a counsellor learning from your kids about what they want, and then conveying that to you and the father so that you might be able to make arrangements with their desires in mind.

In any case, I hope this in some way helps.

 

[Kaylee01]

Hi, thank you in advance for answering my legal question.

My ex-partner and myself both reside in the same town and have a soon-to-be 17 year old and a 15 year old. I am considering relocating to another city for a variety of reasons - my career, future careers, study options and job prospects for my boys, to reside closer to supportive family members and change of lifestyle.

I have not discussed much with my ex due to not knowing whether my application to transfer has or hasn't been successful. Today I found out it was successful, for beginning 2016.

To cut a long story short, he found out and rang immediately to inform me that I could not legally do this. We have never had any family court orders put in place and have only ever had a private agreement in relation to child support, visitation etc. He was not only concerned about visitation, but very concerned about paying full child support - which is a private matter and I'm sure options will be discussed fairly and agreed upon at some stage.

Both boys have expressed to me they want to move with me; older boy doesn't have a great relationship with dad but younger does.

Could he stop this relocation (which is within the same state) from occurring? If so, how?

Thank you.

Thank you for your reply. I have considered most of your suggestions previously but didn't think about the boys discussing their wants to a counsellor. This is a fantastic idea as I'd never want to go ahead with something so huge which deep down they didn't want to do.
Thank you for your objective advice.