Can you and your children move to another city when you share child custody and your ex doesn't agree with the move?

You and your ex must agree to anything that significantly disrupts your current custody order or access arrangements, or you must have the court's permission to move.

Without your ex's consent and given the distance you're planning to relocate, you'll need to convince a judge that it's in the children's best interests to have them move with you. If you take the children without your ex's consent or without a court order, you're putting yourself in a poor position if he or she then goes to court.

If you and your ex can't reach an agreement (preferably with a consent order from the court) and you go ahead and move away with the children, your ex may make a court application for custody and your actions may go against you.

In court, each case is decided individually based on the circumstances, with the court making no presumption in favour of the parent who the children spend the most time with. This means that even if your children live mainly with you, the court may not agree with you moving the children. The court is guided by general principles, the most important being the "best interests of the child," and will consider such factors as:

• the existing custody and access arrangements;
• the relationship between your children and you as the custodial parent;
• whether you and your ex each want to maximize contact with your children;
• the children's views;
• your reason for moving, if it's relevant to your ability to meet your children's needs;
• the disruption to your children of a change in custody; and
• the disruption to your children of removal from family, schools, and the community they know.

This issue is referred to as "child mobility" or mobility rights. See Making changes on JP Boyd's BC Family Law Resource website and Breaking away on the the Canadian Bar Association website for more information on this issue.