Bilateral

[Sunsprt]

i (father)have my daughter 50% of the time which has been this way for the past 5 years now its time for school and where she is going to live, her mother lives 3 hours away in a small town, we booth want full custody i feel she is a good mom as i am a good dad, her and her boyfriend have a small child and he has 2 daughters half time, they want to do a bilateral for 20k what are the chances of winning and what do they look for when you do a bilateral?

[Rioe]

Google turned up a few links on what an assessment entails:

Canadian Co-Parenting Centres - Situations: Bilateral Looming

Child Custody Assessments : Canadian Divorce Laws

so do some research and you'll have a better idea what will happen.

You have a well-established history of 50-50 custody, so it's going to be hard to take that away. Obviously, however, the child can't attend two different schools. Whatever ends up happening, the parent whose access suffers in the end should be granted extra time during PA days, long weekends, Christmas and March break and summertime, to make up for the child losing access to one parent.

Was there no plan for this inevitable eventuality in your separation agreement?

To help determine if you should get the school access instead of the vacation access, I'd suggest researching the schools in both areas, and seeing which one would be best for your daughter. There are other things to keep in mind too. Where are your daughter's friends and where would they go to school? Would she be going to school with her siblings if she was in your ex's location?

Alternatively, one of you could move to be closer to the other, to maintain the 50-50 schedule. Who moved away? In general, the onus is on the moving away parent to be the one to move back. This way the child is the stable one.

If you and your ex can do mediation or something to try to come to an arrangement yourself, you don't need an assessment, or court. Also, the more attempts you make to do this collaboratively without involving the courts means that if she pushes for court and you end up in the conflict route, you are far less likely to have to pay any legal costs.

[Berner_Faith]

I agree with Rio...the one you should be thinking about here is the child... you already have 50/50 which will be hard to break, but like stated, the child can't attend 2 different schools...
Do as Rio said and research both schools...which on is better (and give an honest review...don't be bias) In the end one of you are going to lose access through the week, but this doesn't mean 50/50 access is lost. Work it it so that Holidays/Vacation makes up for the time lost during the school year.

Like Rio also stated..would it be in the child's best interest to attend school with other siblings? It's going to be hard for some of you to lose that time, but you need to think of what is best for the child.

This is something that should have been addressed in the first agreement.

[dinkyface]

What is bilateral?