pettioning court for permission to travel

[foxcub]

Illinois,

i'm a single dad and my childrens mother has refused her permission out of spite for my daughters to travel on holiday with me. We will be staying with friends in europe. I was wondering if anyone had an idea of what the judge will be looking for and what questions he will ask? Last year she did give her permission for my eldest to travel and we returned on time and notified her of the address we were staying at and everything went fine. Thanks guys i appreciate any help you can offer, Michael.

 

[ceara19]

Illinois,

i'm a single dad and my childrens mother has refused her permission out of spite for my daughters to travel on holiday with me. We will be staying with friends in europe. I was wondering if anyone had an idea of what the judge will be looking for and what questions he will ask? Last year she did give her permission for my eldest to travel and we returned on time and notified her of the address we were staying at and everything went fine. Thanks guys i appreciate any help you can offer, Michael.

What EXACTLY does your court order say?

 

[foxcub]

The court order states that i have to have either her permission or the courts permission. I was just wondering what it would be that they want to know from me so i can prepare properly.

 

[moburkes]

The court order states that i have to have either her permission or the courts permission. I was just wondering what it would be that they want to know from me so i can prepare properly.

Foxcub, pull out the court order, and re-type the section that refers to the travel stipulations. Word-for-word. EXACTLY how it is written.

 

[foxcub]

This is what the order say:
the party the custody of the said children is given shall not remove the children from the jurisdiction of this court without having first obtained written consent by the other party or the leave of the court

 

[psfunkytek]

International Travel

What are the ages of your children? I went through this last year and leaving the country is TOTALLY different than leaving the state (although from your last post, CLEARLY you are not allowed to leave the state either).

If you children do not have passports (and I believe are under 14), you CANNOT obtain passports for them without consent from the mother, so you'd first have to petition the court to force the mom to sign consent for the passports (I was taken to court for this last year). In my case, my ex wanted to take our daughter to Jamaica which is a country which is not party to the Hague Convention (an international treaty which recognizes custody laws of another nation - that's a vague definition). Since his wife is Jamacian and has strong family ties there, if they had decided not to return, we would not have been able to get local government cooperation in order to ensure our daughter was returned.

If there is a real good reason for travel to Europe, you may be able to get a judge to allow it and order mom to sign the passport consent (they might require you post a large bond), but if it's just for leisure ski trip or something like that, then there is a good chance that the judge will say no. It's just not worth the risk.

I did a TON of research on this last year when I was faced with it, and what I did find is that judges have a very wide range of descretion on this issue and if you make a good argument, you have some chance of having this granted, but the worse the relationship is with you and the ex, the less likely you'll be to have it granted because the reality is that it's those type of situations where kids are most likely to NOT be returned and even if you know that you're returning, the judge can't know that and so there is NO benefit to them to take the chance of having that on their conscious. It's just easier to say no, which is what happened in my case, sort of. Basically, the court stalled the case for weeks, then said, "well, we don't have time for a full hearing, so I can't allow it".

 

[JBMD]

I didn't have any trouble ... I asked the judge to have my ex wife sign the appropriate form, as she had refused. He asked why ... I said that I wanted to take my son on a cruise and then he asked her why she objected .... yada yada..... then he ordered her to sign the paperwork!!! I just have to provide her with an itinerary before the trip. I would have done that anyway, however she likes for everything to be an argument. If i want something one way ... she needs it to be the other...... I'm learning to deal and simply paying extra in legal fees for the next 10 years. Maybe she'll learn that if she was just a reasonable human being, she'd save a ton of money in legal fees ... but then I would save money too .... .she can't have that!!

I think you just need to petition the court (as soon as possible) prior to your trip ... and I don't see any reason why the judge wouldn't grant it! Especially since you've already shown that you've taken trips to Europe and RETURNED as scheduled.
But that is just my opinion! Hope it helps!!

 

[foxcub]

Thank you to everyone for your help, it was much appreciated and i'm glad to read others have got over this thing also. Her main worry is that she doesn't know my friends, but there you go. Have a great summer!