[Solved] Preventing ex moving away

Hi there

Without having a little more information about your situation, it’s difficult to offer the right advice.

Your child’s age is a factor... whether the shared custody is an informal agreement, or was decided by court order is also important.

Courts are generally loathe to prevent free movement of parents, within the jurisdiction of the country. People move for all sorts of reasons, for work, to be closer to family...and these reasons are valid.

A move within a jurisdiction can only be challenged successfully when the move is being done to frustrate contact between a child and parent, or isn’t in the child’s best interests for reasons of education or perhaps on medical grounds.

Applying for a court order to stop the move, would at the very least, delay the move whilst the court look into it further, but it’s by no means a done deal.

Mediation to try and reach agreement would be the first step, unless the move is imminent, in which case an urgent application for a Prohibited Steps Order would the next step.

By applying to court, you would be asking the other parent to provide information about where they would live, what financial support is in place and what arrangements have been made as far as school is concerned, if it offers the same quality of education. If the child has ongoing medical needs you would want to know what has been put in place for that to be managed at the same level.

All the best

Thank you. Child is 6 and very settled in current town. If the mother does move it will reduce my contact with my child. Do you know the likely result if this did go to court?

If your ex is moving for genuine reasons such as to be near her family or for a job, ie not solely to prevent contact with you, and she's not moving to another country (which included Scotland, if you live in England), then as mentioned above, courts generally don't prevent the move, in which case you might need to concentrate on how to chance the patterns of contact, such as increased time over school holidays.

As we share custody could I suggest daughter stays with me and mother's contact is reduced because she is the one wanting to move?

Its unlikely that they would transfer residence over to you without there being safeguarding issues for your child.

If you share custody with an informal agreement, and without a court order, she can disregard that if she wants to move.

There’s is just no way of predicting outcomes, I understand your arguement, but people move and in a free country it’s difficult for courts to prevent that feeedom of movement, unless it’s detrimental to the child.

If court wasn’t successful, at least they would put an order in place as far as contact is concerned and how that would work for you once they’ve moved.

All the best

I thought I’d link you to a blog by a renowned family lawyer, it shows how complex this issue is for courts to decide upon.

https://www.stowefamilylaw.co.uk/blog/2016/02/14/the-internal-and-external-relocation-of-children-by-amy-foweather/

It might be helpful for you to speak to a solicitor about your situation, some offer a free initial consultation. Moving away has far reaching implications for you and your child and if my responses seemed a bit vague, it’s because this area of law is complex, I can only share my experiences from other members, that have shared what happened to them. I’m not legally tranined and can give assurances to you either way.

All the best

Do you have a court order giving you 50/50 contact?

If so, the mother would have to apply to vary the order, as to move away would put her in breach of the order.......

Thank you Mojo!

Yoda - No court order in place at the moment, but we agree to a 50/50 schedule.

If the move is imminent, you can make an urgent Prohibited Steps Order application to put things on pause for now.

As you have 50/50, I would think you would have a stronger case than if you had one or two nights a fortnight.

Get a free consultation with a solicitor if you can and think about a PSO application using a C100 form if you need things to slow down while everything gets sorted.

Best of luck