Visitation

[pgh115]

Here is my situation . Before i found out that my daughter was acutually mine her mother moved to flordia. My daughter was born in New York and the child support  is ran threw the erie county cp. Now that my daughter is two the cost of plane rids down and back are costing to much and i cant afford to go and bring her home as much as i need too. There was no visitation set up threw any court, I tried to get visitation threw buffalo courts and they told me i had to file in flordia,. My child support was modified just a little for cost of transportation not enough to offset the cost. Her mother is a monster everytime i have my daughter and im sick and tired of having to ask to see my daughter whenever i can scrounge up the $600-800 it cost for me to go and get her. Is there anything i can do to get her to pay the cost of travel because she decided to move 1500 miles away?  Not to mention shes still getting full child support when i have her for 5 weeks at a time.  Is there  something i can do about that?Im going to a fathers rights group wednesday to see what my options are, im missing out on alot of important time with my daughter. Everytime i go and get her I have to reintroduce my self to her and it just isnt fare for me or her. I really cant afford to hire a lawer to fight this any suggestions would be helpfull thanks!!

[ocean]

Your child support is still through NY? As far as i know you would have to get visits through NY unless the mother gets it switched to Florida...
Find out what court you need to go to and file for visitation...with dates and times. At the same time you can ask for a child support modification for visiting costs (and put in there mother moved away from homestate).

You need to come up with a schedule that you can live by and what happens when child gets to school age. Get it all in there so you dont have to go back...school vacations, summer visits, fathers day weekend,
There are many schedules on this site...find one that is good for you and ask for that in your papers (ask for more so you can barter with some).
Good luck..

[MixedBag]

Here's the thing -- if Mom is resisting your presence in your child's life, the state in which she lives will have the most "power" and personal jurisdiction over her to get her to comply.

Jurisdiction:  You don't say where you live.

My stuff is long distance too.  And I kinda chuckle at my EX#2 about this subject.  WE lived in WV.  We divorced in WV.  The military moved me TO WV and FROM WV to here, AL.  So I don't 100% buy in my case the "you moved, you pay" theory.  But anyways, I would agree that most folks have experienced the "you move, you pay" theory.

Jurisidiction:  Two summers ago, I became the primary residential parent and brought our son to Alabama.  EX#2 desparately wanted me to agree in writing to keep jurisdiction in WV.  Both he and our judge said that "6 months after our son moved, jurisdiciton would change."  I said "I disagree and promise to keep jurisdiction in WV BECAUSE I want the court to retain all the history."  (Yes, tons of bad history).  So, even though that was almost 2 years ago, I didn't change jurisdictions etc.

Now here comes Dad with a motion to change custody back.  In his opening letter he said something like that he reviewed all the laws and jurisdiction should in fact be WV.    And that's the part that made me chuckle.

See...Dad never left WV, and it's my interpretation that BOTH parents must move away from the original jurisdiction before the custodial parent can move it to where the child lives now.

So -- if you're in NY, but Buffalo said they didn't want to touch it, then you have one of two choices:

1.  Appeal their decision regarding jurisdiction

2.  File in Florida.

Number one will mean you are not moving the subject of "getting to know your daughter" any closer to getting resolved because you're addressing jurisdiction first.

Number two will mean you are moving closer on the subject of your daughter.

And your opportunity or timeframe within which to appeal might have actually expired.

Cost of transportation?

I too paid to get our son to come see me -- 6 round trip tickets in the first years, or 4 days of driving 12 hours and 2 nights in a hotel.  Take your pick.  But I knew this was an expense that should be top priority and saved for each trip and made it happen.

If there is no "long distance" parenting plan in place, I suggest you file to have one put in place and start by reading over the samples here at the site.  (well, I hope they're still here!).

None of us are attorney's here -- so we can't help draw up paperwork and stuff like that, but we can share our experience and give advice based on that.

[*iLUVmySD*]

So do you even have any existing custody/visitation order? It is not necessarily the same thing as a child support order.  Were you ever married to your daughter's mother?  My husband filed for custody in Arizona when there was an existing child support order in Nevada.  My husband and his daughter's mother were never married and she didn't know that custody and child support are two separate things.  He ended up getting primary custody in Arizona even though the child support case still stays in Nevada until BM has moved out of the state.  If you can answer the above questions, I may be able to give you helpful information from my experience as applicable.

[pgh115]

I was never married to my daughters mother. I live in new york Where my daughter was born. I didnt even know that my daughter was acutally mine untill a year after she was born. There is no vistation order, the only court paperwork that has been addressed in this case is the childsupport. I dont have much money left over (after paying my $189 dollar weekly child support bill) to do much else then pay my living expences and save for the next trip down to flordia.  Another issue that i am having is last year my taxes and stimulus check was seized by flordia , a year later new york finally desided to credit me some  the sized money to my account, in the mean time my arrears were paid in full and they coutinued taking the extra portion for only about another year! They send me $150  check whenever they feel like it and they still havent even applied the full amount that was seized by flordia.  If faxed them,wrote them, went to there office still nothing What a joke huh? Atleast ther not stealing the extra half finally. The wost part about it new york isnt even releasing all the funds to my ex, The payments to childsupport dont even match what ther dispursing to her. Aint that something!!!!! Something needs to happen! and to top it all off I dont know  where my daughter is actual living address i have my exs mothers address but she currently isnt living there! Her mother hasnt even answered the phone in weeks  for me to talk to my child. 

Any simiar cases with the outcome would really be benificial to me! I know i have to fight the battle in flordia im going to spend my next visitation expences on a lawyer so i need to make it count! I prolly wont be seeing my daughter for 6 months or longer so.......there it is!!!!  Thank You too all that reply finally people that wont charge me to listen!

[*iLUVmySD*]

Okay well our case was a little different, but there were some similarities.  My husband the mother of his daughter were never married.  They both lived in Nevada. Child support was ordered to be payed to BM but no custody was ordered, it was just defaulted to her in the Nevada court for the purposes of child support.  When my SD was 2, my husband, then boyfriend, moved to Arizona with me.  Approximately 1-1/2 to 2 years after that, BM sent my SD down to live with us on a "temporary" basis provided my husband still pay BM child support.  If he didn't pay then BM threatened to pick up my SD.  This went on for 2 years until we finally had money to hire an attorney.  Eventually we figured out that after talking to several attorneys in Nevada and in Arizona, that there was no existing custody/visitation order and that he could file for custody in Arizona.  We ended up filing for an emergency hearing because BM was seriously threatening to pick up my SD because the IRS had not garnished my husband's tax return for the previous year for arrears on child support.  The judge ordered that my SD remain in Arizona with us.  BM did not have a lawyer and my husband and her ended up settling in mediation.  With regards to the child support once he had a court order saying he had custody he immediately sent that to the CSE in Nevada.  They stopped the ongoing support but said that they couldn't give him credit for the past two years of paying BM child support while still taking care of his daughter. Since then they have continued to garnish his portion of our tax return for the arrears because BM wouldn't forgive it even though she was receiving support for no child for 2 years.  As far as visitation expenses in regards to child support Nevada claimed that BM got credit for visitation expenses with along with some other factors reduced her child support obligation to $0.  Nevada did not give my husband any credit because we pay the other half of the visitation expenses because he was the one that moved from Nevada even though BM voluntarily sent my SD to live here too.

In regards to your situation based on this experience, you will have to file for custody/visitation in Florida assuming your daughter has been there for more than 6 months. I would think since your daughter's mother created the distance that you should get credit for child support, but the problem is that there is no custody/visitation order so having a set schedule may help put a more exact amount on the cost for seeing your daughter that should be credited to your support payments.  As far as finding where they are living I would start with the CSE that is paying her your support.  They must have some idea as to where she is in order to pay her.  With regards to your garnished taxes, the CSE is required to hold the money for 6 months as a precaution in case any of the money was taken in error (like if there is a spouse that is entitled to a portion of it, etc).  It is always better to be the first to file for custody/visitation and a lawyer is necessary especially for fathers.  In the meantime document everything, keep everything, and do some research online on the laws in Florida before talking to a lawyer.  Being organized and having an idea of your plan of attack may help you save costs.   Good luck.

[Davy]

NY and only NY is clearly the Home state and will remain the home state as long as you remain a resident of NY unless YOU relinqish home state jurisdiction by responding to FL or filing in FL.  FL has no judicial standing to hear any matters concerning your child.   

If anyone including judges, lawyers or someone posting on an internet board says otherwise then are saying so with ignorance or based on a 'social experience'.  Please verify by researching articles on this site concerning "The Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act" and/or "The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act".

The 6 month rule acts like a marker to prevent illegal filings and a source of argument, pardon me, source of income for for the legal profession and the judicary.

[ocean]

It sounds like NY is not going to take jurisdiction since the child has been in Fla. There is no current order so there is not parental kidnapping here...BM did not break any laws since they have no papers with any court. They were never married so mother could move with child. (not that it is right). He could have filed a emergency hearing to stop the move and get custody established with visitation. How long ago did she move to Florida...sounds like a while?

[Davy]

Ocean is referring to bias and prejudiced social policies rather than legal statues which  exist to protect children that have no voice.  The statues do not address marriage and the presence or lack of court orders is not the determining factor.

[*iLUVmySD*]

As far as I understand it (and I re-read it to make sure), The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act does not dictate that NY has jurisdiction since there is no order regarding custody/visitation.  The Uniform Interstate Family Support Act does apply for the existing child support order.  And NY will continue to have exclusive continuing jurisdiction until father consents to move the jurisdiction to another state or he moves from the state.

This is the "ignorance" that is accepted by judges, lawyers, and many others from my "social experience" with both acts and you would most likely be hard pressed to convince the courts otherwise as previously suggested.  But again I would recommend familiarizing yourself with both of these laws before you talk to a lawyer.