Texas Divorce Law...

Texas Law - What If A Spouse Wants To Move Away?

The court has authority to decide whether the custodial parent may move the child out of state, or otherwise out of visiting range of the other parent.

The court will make this decision based on what appears best for the child under all the circumstances of the case, and it may modify that decision if circumstances change.

Whether joint custody is decided by agreement or the court, that agreement must settle the issue of location. The issue can be settled by specifying the county where the child will live (subject to modification by the court). Or it can be settled by naming the parent who can decide where the child will live.

Section 153.133, 153.134, 156.101, 156.301.

Cases:

Villasenor (1995) 911 SW2d 411 (The parties had three children. The oldest, a girl, elected to remain with the father. The mother planned to take the remaining two boys to Houston from San Antonio. The mother had family there. The father, a surgeon with an annual gross income of $664,000, was a coach and "academic mentor" in the boys' lives. The court ordered that the children to stay in Bexar County, deciding that it was in the boys' best interests that they be near both parents. This was in spite of behavior of the boys' mother such as making over 100 harassing phone calls after the divorce, refusing in one case to grant court-ordered visitation, bad-mouthing the husband to the children, scratching his car in front of the children, and so on.)

Wood v. O'Donnell (1995) 894 SW2d 555 (where court found it was in the child's best interests to remain in the county where the father lived, the judge erred in granting the mother the right to take the child to another county. The judge had misread the law on the issue and thought he had to let the mother take the child. But the move, which would have been a modification of the original custody order, would have to have been a positive improvement for and in the best interest of the child).

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