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Happy New Year! What are we doing about Standard Visitation for January?

Tuesday, January 8th, 2013

Okay, January is here and it is 2013!  What do we have on tap for our weekend and Thursday periods of possession this month?  Let’s see:

Weekend possessions – If your child returned to school yesterday or today (which most did), then the first weekend of the month would have been trumped by the Christmas holiday possession.  Therefore the first weekend possession this month will be January 18th (3rd Friday of the month).  There is no fifth Friday this month, so only one weekend of standard possession this month.  But wait!  There’s more…if your child is released from school for the Martin Luther King holiday, then the provision for extended weekends will apply.  That holiday is the Monday following the standard possession weekend.

In quick review, if MLK day is a holiday for your child and your possession ends at 6:00 p.m. on a typical Sunday, then your possession will now end at 6:00 p.m. on Monday.  This is all assuming that you have that provision in your decree.  Check in the visitation section for the “extended by holiday” section.

As for Thursdays (or Wednesdays under old orders) you will get the 10, 17, 24, and 31 (or 9, 16, 23, or 30).

That’s it for this month.  Post comments if you have questions.

Let’s make 2013 the year of compassion when it comes to visitation.  Let’s try to do at least one nice thing this year when a dispute arises as to visitation.  Can we do that?  One thing this year?  I can hear the response…”but they never do anything nice for me…..”  Then I guess you are a better person than they are.  When you give someone a gift, do you expect that they give you a gift back?  I hope not.

Happy New Year.

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Posted in Children, Divorce, Holiday visitation, Visitation, Visitation in Texas | No Comments »

Standard possession order for June 2012

Friday, June 1st, 2012

June is here, and so is the summer.  By the time your read this, most all kids should be out of school.  Some important notes to remember in a standard possession order in Texas is that the weekend visitations continue throughout the summer and weeknight possessions do not.  I get this question all the time and for some reason people cannot figure this out.  This is how you tell in your order:

  • The Thursday possessions (or Wednesdays in older orders) say “during the school term”, such and such parent shall have Thursdays (or Wednesdays).  This means when school is in session.  If your child is too young for school, then it goes by the calendar of the school district they would be in to determine when school is in session.
  • If you will review the weekend provisions, however, you will see there is no such language.  That is because weekend possessions continue all year long.

The continued weekend possessions are trumped by summer visitation.  If you will review my previous post you will see how a clever parent can designate summer weekends that aren’t theirs for there extended summer possession and still get the weekends that are.  If someone reads my post and uses this against you, I am sorry :( .

For a review of other summer issues please review my post on summer visitation in Texas.

If you are a parent exercising standard visitation in Texas, and you have not otherwise designated some time in June for your extended summer possession, you will have the following weekends:

  • June 1st (first Friday)
  • June 15 (it is fatherless day weekend AND third Friday of the month) and
  • June 29 (this is a fifth Friday of the month)

Remember that when there is a fifth Friday of the month, the visiting parent will get that weekend and the very next weekend because it will be the first Friday of the month (in this year, July the 6th, unless this is inside your extended summer possession in which case you get the child anyway).

No Thursdays (or Wednesdays in older orders) this month.

Have a good beginning to the summer!

 

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Posted in Children, Divorce, Holiday visitation, Visitation, Visitation in Texas | 6 Comments »

Here we go again…..

Thursday, May 17th, 2012

Sorry, I got behind again on my posts.  As I can see from reviewing my “comments” to my April post, I may need to review the summer “notice” provisions again.  It appears that many of you get confused because one party is learning to “game” the system.  What I mean by that is this:

  • Non custodial parent (ncp) is entitled to thirty days in the summer and must elect their time by April 1 or it will revert to July 1 – July 31st.  Let’s pretend I am the ncp and I send written notice on March 31st via certified mail and first class mail.  First problem is that the custodial parent (cp) does not pick up the certified mail and it just sits.  It does not matter.  I met the notice requirements and they are on notice whether they pick up or not.  To be safe, i may also send via email.
  • Here is where I “game” it.  I pick my first two weeks to be as follows – July 8th until July 20th.  That is the first part of my extended summer possession and accounts for 12 days.  HOWEVER, look at your calendar.  I also get standard weekends in the summer.  That means that I will pick up the child on July 6th at 6:00 p.m. and keep the child until Sunday the 8th at 6:00 p.m.  My next possession is my extended summer possession and begins on Sunday the 8th at 6:00 p.m.  That means I keep the child from the weekend.  My possession then goes until Friday the 20th at 6:00 p.m., but wait, I also get that weekend as it is a third weekend, and it begins on Friday at 6:00 p.m. so I would keep the child until that Sunday at 6:00 p.m. before I returned to cp.

As you can see from that hypothetical, I have only used twelve days of my extended summer possession, but have gotten 16 days out of it.  I can do this all over again one more time if I wanted to.  That is what you call gaming the system.

This post answers a few of the comments I had regarding notice under the standard possession order in Texas.  There were many more and I will try to address them as they come up.

Talk to you soon.

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Posted in Divorce, Visitation | 9 Comments »

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