Transfer Provisions for Child Custody and COVID-19

Watch the video above to learn more about transfer provisions for child custody.

“Hi, I’m Chris Schmiedeke of Divorce Simplified. We help clients simplify the divorce process. All right, in my previous video, we discussed the possession and access under the COVID-19 pandemic or the shelter in place orders. We all know that the kids are not in school but under the Supreme Court and Dallas County, Collin County, Denton County, we’re required to follow the orders as if the kids were in school. But what happens to the transfer provisions? For instance, if you pick up your child after school on Thursdays and you keep them overnight on Fridays, return to school, how do you accomplish that? Your order should have a specific provision in place that tells you how to deal with that situation. Meaning if the child is not in school, the transfer will take place at the other parent’s house at blank period of time. That could be 8:00 AM, it could be 3:00 PM but there should be a provision that says what happens when the kids aren’t in school.

If you don’t have that provision, then you have a hole in your order and that needs to be fixed. But here’s the other problem. So, for instance, on your weekends, if you pick up after school on Thursday, return to school on Friday, pick up after school on Friday, return to school on Monday, the intent of that order is that you have basically continuous possession from Thursday to Monday. Right? But if the child’s not in school, what do you do with the child when they should be in school? So I don’t have an answer to that question and nobody has really told us an answer to that question. My argument would be that they would just be in “school at your house” so you would have possession from Thursday, pick up per the transfer provisions at say 3:00 PM under the normal order, and you’d return them to the other parent on Monday morning.

So for instance, if the child is not in school and you don’t have the provisions that tell you what to do when the child’s not in school, then you’re going to have to get creative. So you could pick up after school on Thursday at say 3:00 PM when they get out of school at the school, just as if they were in school, right. And then Monday, when you return to school, if they started school at 7:50 AM, you would do the transfer at that school at 7:50 AM. If you can’t do that, then you’re going to have to reach agreements with the other party. If that can’t be done, then you’re going to have to go to court and ask the court to help you resolve this issue. In any case, in the future, if you don’t have a provision in there that tells you when to pick up and drop off when the children aren’t in school, then you need to have that portion of your order fixed.”