Legal Question in Family Law in Washington
Children Travel Expenses
My wife & her ex divorced/settled in WA & her children reside in WA with their father. She used to reside in northern CA but now resides in southern CA & my question was regarding the issue of whether she is responsible for paying all the travel expenses, including plane tickets. At their trial, both previously agreed to meet at halfway points from her previous northern CA residence. Since then, she has received a letter from her ex who refuses to pay any airfare that equals the cost of gas that he previously spent on commuting to their location. She is already paying for her airfare, her children's airfare, to include an additional roundtrip ticket to pick them up and drop them off. Is there anyway she could be reimbursed at least one roundtrip ticket, due to her ex refusing to travel as a guardian to drop off her children at the airport? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Children Travel Expenses
The best thing to do is seek a modification of the Order of Child Support to take into account the new needed long distance travel expenses. I think any commissioner or judge will agree that the father should at least be responsible for what he was willing to pay for when you lived in northern California. As for the remaining distance, what ought to happen is that each parent should be responsible for their proportional share of travel costs.
Beyond that, there are questions such as how many trips per year, and what do everyone's incomes allow for? With long distance cases, if the children are old enough to fly on a non-stop flight by themselves, that is the cheapest way to go and they let parents accompany kids up to the gate on each end. If they need accompaniment, they I suggest that each parent accompany the children one way and again, split these costs proportionately based upon their incomes.
If the case was originally heard in western Washington, I'd be happy to provide a telephone consultation at no charge and we could take things from there. You can get my office number by clicking on my name below. If you need a referral for eastern Washington, I am also happy to provide you with a couple if you e-mail me.
Good luck!
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