A parent may think there is nothing they can do if the parent who has the child most of the time wants to relocate. Washington family law, however, has a process for a parent to object to the relocation of a child in some circumstances.
In a recent unpublished opinion, a Washington appeals court considered whether the trial court had properly denied a mother’s request to relocate with her child. The child, E.S., was born in August 2012. The parents, who were not married, separated in 2015. They initially had an informal arrangement, under which E.S. primarily lived with his mother but was with his father two or three nights a week.
A parenting plan signed in 2018 established that the father would have E.S. Wednesday to Sunday every other week. The plan could be modified by agreement of the parties and E.S. subsequently began staying with the father 5 nights of every 14.