VIC Threatening to relocate against orders

[Corinne]

Hi,

Short story, partner has 6.5 year old son every second weekend, 10 days and 10 nights of end of term holidays, half of Christmas holidays. Shared parental responsibility. Orders state primary carer needs non-resident parent's written consent or court order to move the child more than 20kms from current residence.

Mother of child now states she is selling their current house (probably due to settlement from most recent relationship breakdown) and wishes to move 50kms away from current residence, which means child will have to change school again.

Child is currently already on his second primary school and hasn't even finished Year 1, as she has moved previously and wanted to keep moving, hence the movement restriction order.

Partner pays applicable child support.

Any advice on where to go from here? Partner doesn't want son's school changed every time she makes a daft decision, which is proving to be quite frequently.

Can we stop her from moving or do we have to wait until she's moved then file contravention?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

 

[AllForHer]

Your partner tells her he is not agreeable to the proposed relocation and remind her politely what the orders state, then if she moves anyway, you file a contravention order and a relocation order.

 

[Corinne]

Thanks AllForHer.

Do you mean recovery order?

Do you think the court would consider 30kms outside of the order to be an insignificant breach?

 

[sammy01]

Is it worth it? If it does not impact on time with dad this might not be a fight worth having by the time u get to court she will argue the child has settled in blah blah

 

[AllForHer]

Apologies, yes, I meant a recovery order (though a relocation order to have the child moved back makes sense, too).

Looking at the orders, dad's time with the child is, by modern standards, the bare minimum and still just as easily facilitated over 50km of distance as it is over 20km of distance. The Court doesn't like to impose on people's freedom of movement, so it may simply allow the move, order that she do all the traveling and impose a bond.

Overall, I'm inclined to agree that it may not be a fight worth having, but hey, the orders were also made for a reason, weren't they?

 

[Corinne]

Thank you.

Just found out the property settlement was a lie and she's moving because she's keeping an illegal number of dogs on her property. So we are not consenting to the move regardless of the distance.

Can we use an affidavit submitted by the respondent in the original case as evidence against them in a new case?

Reason being, lots of contradictions and lies that are now blatantly obvious.

 

[Clancy]

Thank you.

Just found out the property settlement was a lie and she's moving because she's keeping an illegal number of dogs on her property. So we are not consenting to the move regardless of the distance.

Can we use an affidavit submitted by the respondent in the original case as evidence against them in a new case?

Reason being, lots of contradictions and lies that are now blatantly obvious.

I think you would be over complicating things.... Better to keep it simple, (recovery order) that is plan A. Then keep the above in reserve as a plan B

 

[Corinne]

Does a recovery order apply if the move doesn't reduce time with the other parent? We've got an ongoing issue of this person moving continuously, hence the movement restriction order which she's now choosing to ignore. So the move won't affect time, but will affect schooling seeing as this will be his third school in two years.

 

[Clancy]

Does a recovery order apply if the move doesn't reduce time with the other parent? We've got an ongoing issue of this person moving continuously, hence the movement restriction order which she's now choosing to ignore. So the move won't affect time, but will affect schooling seeing as this will be his third school in two years.

Oh that's interesting.... i am in the process of drawing up final orders for my daughter, one of the conditions we (me and my lawyer) are specifying is that the primary carer is not to relocate so as to cause a change of school! That one would have been handy for you!!

Interestingly, it was not my lawyer who suggested it, i found it among other things on the internet.

 

[Corinne]

Yeah it would be handy, good luck!

In our situation she had shacked up with a bloke in the defence force and assumed she could jet set around the country with him and the kids and live happily ever after without having any consideration for the father of her first child. Wrong.

Ultimately the solution here is we need to move closer and secure more time.

I'm thinking we'll use the major change in circumstances that occurred last year in order to meet Rice and Asplund threshold to vary current orders, because they were written with regard to when she lived 400kms away last year.