Shared Custody Dispute

[dexter_36]

I have a 3 year old son with an ex girlfriend (never married).

I allowed her to have sold custody until he was older to prevent shuffling him around as he was an infant.

For the past year I have had him Every Tuedsay, Wednesday (sleeping over both nights) and every other Friday (till Saturday afternoon). This works out to about 30% of the time because she watches him while I am working full time.

I have no problem arranging day care for him on my scheduled days and taking him the full weekend but she is fighting me on it and I believe it is because of money.

If I get shared custody of my son she fears I will no longer have to pay her any support and be entitled to 6 months each of the government benefits. She really does not want to lose all of this money she had now become accustomed to.

I told her I would take shared custody and allow her to keep the government benefits and claim him on her taxes until she was stable but I asked to have my current support payment of 240$ cut in half to 120$.

I believe this to be extremely fair and she doesn't.

Where do I stand and will I need to take her to court to ammend the support agreement? Is there anything she can do to prevent me from gettnig shared custody?

[yearsgone]

This is something that has to be amended by a court order, but it is very likely the court will be sympathetic as it is in your son's interest to be with both his parents.

For a change to occur to the custody or access arrangements, there has to be some change in circumstances justifying a change in the arrangements. However, although the parents’ circumstances may not have changed, the needs of a child change as s/he grows older, and some courts have permitted the aging of a child to result in a change of the custody/access arrangement. Ottawa Mediation - JDS Mediation Services

[dadtotheend]

This is something that has to be amended by a court order, but it is very likely the court will be sympathetic as it is in your son's interest to be with both his parents.

Unless there wasn't a court order in the first place, and they agreed between the two of them on the parenting schedule. If that's true, what you have now is joint custody and your child's primary residence is with Mom.

Was there ever a court order or written separation agreement that was witnessed?

If you have to go to court, one problem you would have regardless is overcoming the status quo that you have allowed to develop. Judges like status quo, and are reluctant to change circumstances that are working fine as is for kids.

On the other hand you could argue that you agreed (which by the way is a better word to use than "allowed") to this arrangement when the child was an infant with the expectation that the child would have more time with you he was past his tender years.

[jankes71]

In BC, even if you have shared custody, if one parents income is significantly higher than the other's, then they still have to split the difference between them and the higher earning parent will pay the difference to the lower. This is so that shared custody doesn't put an unfair burden on one parent more than the other. Men often think shared custody will get them out of paying support(not saying you are doing that), but if their income is significantly higher, they are still often ordered to pay the difference.
Law also requires that in shared custody there is still a primary residence, for school info etc, so she would most likely still be able to claim the tax break, etc. As long as you were willing to do it. If you wanted to change it, it would have to be court appointed, as the government won't let you both claim it.

[dexter_36]

Yes there is a court ordered agreement between us both that gives her sole custody of Preston. Like you said I agreed as it was in his best interest as an infant. Now that he is older I have been taking him (almost half the time) for over a year now so I don't think the judge will give me too much of a hard time granting me shared custody now (i hope anyways).