Parents living a distance from each other – what happens under Family Law Act when a parenting dispute

Parents living at a distance and disputes on parenting arrangements

When parents separate and move away from each other, if they cannot agree on parenting arrangements, a Judge will have to determine, on the available evidence, what is in the best interests of the child.

The Family Law Act provides that a primary consideration in determining what is in the best interest of a child is the child having a meaningful relationship with both parents. If the parents are living a distance from each other the task is to make Orders that will allow the child to have those meaningful relationships.

If the child would be deprived of any meaningful relationship with one parent, for example the father, if the child continued to live with the other parent, for example the mother, in a place distant from the father, the Judge will examine all the evidence, including any evidence from a Court-appointed Family Consultant that the mother was actively impeding the relationship between the child and the father, or would at least do nothing to promote it.

If the father posed no tangible risk of harm from which the child needed protection, the optimal way to ensure the preservation of the child’s relationship with the father would be for them to spend substantial and significant time together, which would require them to live reasonably near one another.

The Court, in the above example, could not force the mother to move back closer to the father. If the mother declined to move back closer to the father, then the Court may make Orders that the child could live with the father instead because there was no reason to doubt the father’s capacity to meet the child’s intellectual, physical and emotional needs, including by the active promotion of his relationship with the mother.

There are many factors that a Judge considers when making parenting Orders. If you have a parenting dispute and need advice on the factors a Judge considers under the Family law Act, contact Kathy Chase of Pittwater Family Lawyers on (02) 9918 6565 or 0418 285 307 or send her an email at info@pittwaterfamilylawyers.com.au Or at pittwaterfamilylawyers@gmail.com