Photo by Jeremiah Lawrence on Unsplash

If you are facing a divorce or separation and have children, then custody, parenting time and child support are extremely important issues that will be central to your case.  Most people do not want to have to file for divorce hastily or before they are actually ready but in the instance where the other parent has moved out and taken the child or children with them, there may not be any choice but to file for divorce, custody or to establish parentage and custody immediately to preserve the child's and your rights (this is particularly true if you are male and not married to the mother of the child).  This blog is written to very broadly address this issue, if you have questions regarding your particular case, contact us to schedule a consultation by clicking no this link to our online contact form or calling (248) 608-4123.

What Should I Do if I live in Michigan and the Other Parent Has Moved Out of Our Home With the Child?

The short answer is that you should file the appropriate paperwork required to start a divorce, custody or to establish parentage, custody and parenting time immediately.  There are many reasons for this but I will address two of perhaps the most important issues here. 

The first, is that if the other person moves out of the house with the child and does not allow you to see the child, that can be a benefit to the other party when it comes to establishing permanent parenting time through the court.  The reason for this is that the court will look at whether because the child has been spending all of the time with the other parent that an "custodial environment" has been created with the other parent.  If so, then it will be much harder to get yourself equal (or greater) parenting time.  This is true whether or not the custodial environment was created in a wrongful manner by the other party.  That is to say, while the court may agree with you that it was wrong for the other parent to take the child out of the home and not allow you to see the child, this has become the norm for the child and the law requires the court to attempt to maintain some consistency for the child, so the court may be forced into continuing this unfair parenting routine that was unilaterally created by the other parent.  Finally, the longer it takes for you to take the necessary steps to force the other parent to allow you to see the child (filing for divorce, etc.) the more it will look to the court like you do not really care about establishing and maintaining your parenting time with the child.

The second issue arises when the other parent moves to a different county than where the parents and the child were residing while together.  This creates a potential venue problem that has to be taken into consideration.  Venue refers to where or in which county the case will be handled, so if you have been living in Oakland County and neither party has moved out of that county, then Oakland County has venue and there is no question.  However, say you are residing in Macomb County while together but the other parent takes the child and moves to Livingston County to stay with family or for whatever reason.  Once the other parent and the child have resided in Livingston County for more than ten (10) days, then Livingston County may also have jurisdiction.  What this means is that whomever files first in either county will most likely "win" the venue battle and the case will proceed in that county.  There are many reasons that you most likely would prefer to have the case tried in the county where you, the other parent and the children have resided that are beyond the scope of this blog, however there also may be reasons that you would prefer to have the case proceed in the other county, in which case you can file in that county first to insure that the case will proceed there instead.

Schedule a Consultation 

Venue and jurisdiction are relatively complicated areas of the law and in which county the case proceeds can have a huge impact on your case.  If you are in this situation and have questions about how to proceed, do not hesitate to contact us to schedule a consultation by clicking on this link or calling us at (248) 608-4123.