Visitation

[LizaLou1]

Soc,

We now have temp custody of OSS.  The court order says she gets Thanksgiving and part of Christmas.  DH emailed her last month to arrange for air transportation (DH pays).  She responded that she did not want to see OSS at Thanksgiving and that the "court" had not decided about Christmas.  Her entire email implied she knew nothing of the Sep custody hearing even though her attorney attended (she did not) and it was in actuality a stipulated settlement agreement beween the parties ratified by the judge.  Her attorney is the one who typed up and submitted the order for the Judge signature.

Because of the confusion, DH sent a certified letter to her (and her attorney) asking if she planned to exercised her Thanksgiving and Christmas visitation because we planned to buy airline tickets now while they are less expensive.  We gave a deadline but she never responded.  The court order requires us to provide round trip airfare.  What do we do if she waits until the 13th hour to exercise visitation.  

1.  Do we just suck up the approx $800 ticket (assuming availability) knowing we could have purchased it now for less than $150 or does she lose visitation because she did not respond by the deadline?

2.  Is there something else we can do to protect ourselves from unnecessary disruption and expense during the holidays?

Thanks

LizaLou

[socrateaser]

>1.  Do we just suck up the approx $800 ticket (assuming
>availability) knowing we could have purchased it now for less
>than $150 or does she lose visitation because she did not
>respond by the deadline?

The order controls. If the other parent is awarded custody during the holiday, then you must send the child. If the deadline is part of your court order, or you can imply it from the order, then you can use that as an out, otherwise not.

If the other parent, bails out at the last minute, then you can hold her liable for an unused non-refundable ticket. But, if you don't buy the ticket, and the other parent at the last minute demands the child, then you're in contempt.

Obviously, you can just buy a refundable ticket, and then if the other parent bails, then you get your dough back -- more expensive, but not as expensive as losing your money entirely.

I suggest that you seriously consider Southwest Air if at all possible, because they have the most liberal refund and reuse policies. I have managed to obtain a refund from their customer service when the other parent refused to permit the child to ride on anything other than a nonstop and Southwest had no nonstops to the destination, so they just gave the money back, even though the ticket was "non-refundable."