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My 5 year old child lives with me and the other parent lives approx 200 miles away.
Every other weekend for the last 6 weeks we've been meeting in the middle on a Friday and again on a Sunday for drop off and pick up, which is tiring for the kid but also very costly.
When the distance is this great what is the likely outcome a court would recommend.
There are many parents that travel in excess of the distance you mention, ordered by the court. Children can nap in the car and a break can be taken mid journey.
The most important aspect is to maintain a relationship between the non resident parent (NRP) and the child and too often the burden of travelling falls wholly on the shoulders of the NRP which can be unfair.
If travelling duties have already been shared, then the court is likely to order that it continues.
Its only been going on for 6 weeks as the other parent cleared off for about 2.5 years, and quite honestly i cannot afford to drive 10000 miles a year., which if we use the HMRC cost per mile is a sum of £4500 per year ... are residents parents supposed to have this kind of money lying around surely judges have the common sense to realise that this is a large sum of money not accessible to single parents who get sweet FA from the NRP.
The NRP has chosen to live 200 miles away hence should accept that they have opted to make contact with their child difficult, whilst kids can have a nap in the back of a car reality must tell any parent that its unlikely mid afternoon.
Surely not exhausting the kid and leaving the resident parent with enough money to live must have some bearing.
Quite happy for the NRP to move here and see our kid whenever they want.
I tend to agree with you - if the NRP has chosen to move, then that is a cost they should bear and the CMS make an allowance in the maintenance to cover some of the cost ( though a very small cost) - certainly this happened in my case, where the resident mother moved 200 miles away and I was doing a 400 mile round trip for a couple of years. But I then got residence of my children (she was seriously neglecting them) so suddenly my ex had become the NRP and the court ordered that she should do the travelling as a 400 mile round trip was too much to expect the children to do. My case was 10 years ago, though.
To me this is utterly insane to expect a 5 year old to do such travelling, it'll have a huge negative impact on their education when they're shattered at school on the Monday and Tuesday.
And in my case the other parent hasn't paid 1 penny in child support since clearing off so im paying out of my tight budget, but NRP does have a very expensive car.
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