About the Guide The Colorado Divorce & Family Law Guide was created by Carl O. Graham, a Colorado Springs, CO divorce lawyer, and principal of Black & Graham, LLC, a family and criminal law firm. Carl runs the family law side of the firm, and focuses exclusively on Colorado divorce, military divorce issues, child support law, grandparent rights & visitation, common law marriage, child custody, legal separation law, annulment, alimony law, etc. Visit our web site to learn more about our Colorado Springs law firm:
www.blackgraham.com.
With today's increasingly mobile society, one of the most hotly-contested areas of post-divorce litigation in Colorado has become the issue of whether a parent can relocate out of Colorado with the children (also known as "removal from Colorado"). This is especially true in El Paso County, where we have five Army and Air Force installations and tens of thousands of military personnel in the Colorado Springs area.
While a Colorado divorce or legal separation, Colorado law prevents one party from removing the children from Colorado, even temporarily, without either permission from the other party or from the Colorado family law judge. Once a Colorado divorce has been granted, parties can leave for visits, but permanent removal still takes permission - and that permission is increasingly hard to obtain.
In Colorado divorce, legal separation, annulment, and paternity cases involving children, the law concerning child custody & visitation has long recognized that the parents should not be geographically tied to one-another. Just as the parent without custody ("primary residential responsibility") is free to move at will, the parent with the children has traditionally been able to move as well. However, in those cases Colorado courts balance the right to move with the inevitable decrease in parenting time for the parent who remains in Colorado.
Colorado Standard for Relocation
When the parent with majority time wants to relocate, and the move substantially changes the geographical ties between the children and the other parent, as soon as practicable the majority parent must provide the other with:
1. Written notice of the intent to relocate,
2. The location where the party intends to reside,
3. The reason for the relocation,
4. A proposed revised parenting plan
Hearings on child relocation are given priority on the Colorado family law court's docket. At that hearing, the judge must decide whether the proposed relocation is in the children's best interests, taking into account a variety of factors, such as the reasons for the proposed relocation and the objection, the history and quality of each parent's relationship with the child, the opportunities for the child at the new location, the presence/absence of extended family at the new location, etc.
A recent Colorado Supreme Court decision, Marriage of Ciesluk (Colo. 2005), held that no presumptions in favor of either parent apply in a removal case. This means that there is no presumption that the child remains with the primary caregiver, which would place the burden on the other parent to try to stop the removal, and similarly, there is no presumption in favor of the parents remaining in close proximity, which would place the burden on the parent wishing to relocate.
The practical effect of this decision, which overruled a Court of Appeals ruling holding that a proposed relocation must "enhance" the life of the child, is an easing of the standard required for relocation. However, unlike the pre-2001 era, there is no "rubber-stamp" approval of a majority parent's decision to relocate.
Relocation within Colorado
A relocation does not just mean moving out of state. As an example, if the parents have 50/50 time, one parent would have a hard time obtaining permission to move from the Colorado Springs area to Denver (about 70 miles), since it would mean either a lengthy school day commute for the children, or the parent who remains only seeing the children on weekends.
Judges have even denied permission to relocate from Colorado Springs to the Black Forest (about 30 miles), for the same reason. However, if the other parent only has weekend parenting, Colorado divorce courts are usually more lenient with requests to relocate within the state.
If one parent's weeknight or weekend parenting would be adversely affected by the children moving a couple hours away, in Colorado the majority parent must get a court's permission to move.
This web site is an advertisement intended for informational purposes, and is not a substitute for individual legal advice from one of the many Colorado Springs law firms, Colorado Springs lawyers or Colorado Springs attorneys. Only a signed agreement with this Colorado Springs family law attorney can create a Colorado lawyer-client relationship. We assist clients in Colorado Springs / El Paso County courts, in Colorado family law (Colorado divorce, military divorce issues, child support law, grandparent visitation & rights, common law marriage, child custody law, legal separation law, annulment, alimony law, etc).
