Do it Yourself Custody Agreement

Custody of the minor children is a large part of a divorce agreement. Custody agreements serve the best interests of the children. Many people think that the mom has to have primary custody and that the dad gets visitation on the weekends. This has changed over the years--more dads are getting custody of the children, whether it is primary custody or equal rotating custody.

Instructions

1. Determine what type of custody you want. When one parent has primary residential custody, the other parent has secondary residential custody. The children primarily live with the primary residential parent and visit the secondary parent on the weekends, rotating holidays, and usually, if schedules permit, once during the week. Rotating custody is usually used in situations where the parents live close together. The children spend a week or two (depending on the agreement) with one parent, then the same amount of time with the other parent.

2. Determine which parent will have the children on which holiday. Holidays are usually rotated. The major holidays are paired: Thanksgiving and Christmas, Memorial Day and Labor Day, Easter and Spring Break. Mom takes the kids on Christmas in even years (dad gets odd years) and dad takes the kids on Thanksgiving in even years (mom gets odd years). Christmas can be broken into two parts, as is Spring Break. The parent with the children on even years gets the children for the first half of the break, including Christmas Day. The other parent would then take the children on Dec. 26 and keeps them until Jan. 1.

3. Draft a formal agreement once you have decided on the type of custody and visitation. The heading of the agreement has the jurisdictional information about the court, both parties’ names and the case number. The first paragraph states that you have come to an agreement and has the date you reached the agreement. The second paragraph tells the court how many minor children you have, their names and birth dates.

4. Set out the agreement in subsequent paragraphs. The first paragraph should state the type of custody. Work through the year, noting days and times of pick-ups and drop-offs, making each holiday or vacation term a separate paragraph.

5. Sign the agreement (both parties) and have signatures notarized. Submit the agreement to the court for ratification. The judge will sign off on on the agreement, create an order based on the agreement and file it with the case record.

Tips & Warnings

• If the parties determine that it is in the best interests of the children for one parent to have sole custody and the other to have no visitation, no visitation schedule is needed.

• Use days, not dates, as the dates change from year to year. For example: The mother has the minor children from 6 p.m. the Wednesday before the Thanksgiving holiday until 6 p.m. Sunday.

• This procedure may not work is cases where that involve domestic violence, where one party is afraid of the other or in divorce cases that are acrimonious or extremely contested. In those circumstances, consult a lawyer.