Conservatorship in a Texas Divorce

On the off chance that you have require a best reasonable Divorce Law encounter, Conservatorship in a Texas Divorce with the immense procedure!

Spring Divorce Lawyer – A common first question for an attorney with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan to ask a potential client in a consultation is what they would like to see happen in a best-case scenario. A common response from a potential client would be that they want “full custody” of their child.

This may surprise you who are reading this blog post but full custody is not a legal term (at least in Texas). If you review the Texas Family Code and do a search for the word “custody” you will find that the word is not found in the entire Code. The term that most closely resembles what most mean by custody is “conservatorship”.

WHAT ARE THE TYPES OF CONSERVATORSHIP DESIGNATIONS?

Conservatorship is a legal term that is used to describe the relationship between two parents of a child when they are not married (or never were in the first place). There are two conservatorship settings that parents can find themselves living under.

Joint Managing Conservators

The first, and most common, arrangement is that both parents will be “joint managing conservators” of the child. There is a legal presumption for parents to be named joint managing conservators.

Sole Managing Conservator

The second, and far less common, designation for parents are titles of sole managing conservator/possessory conservator. Extreme circumstances and/or bad behavior on part of one parent can result in one parent being named sole managing conservator.

CONSERVATORSHIP MEANS RIGHTS AND DUTIES

Houston Divorce Lawyer – More than merely time with the children, conservatorship divides up the rights and duties of the parents between them. The main right that divorces are fought over is the right to determine the primary residence of the child.

This means being able to choose where the child spends the bulk of their time as well as where the child will attend school. This right cannot be shared- one parent or the other will have it solely to themselves.

The parties can settle on specific agreements associated with this right as well. Settling on a certain geographic area in which the primary residence may be located or even a specific school district.

The last area of “rights and duties” that the attorneys with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan will emphasize to their clients is what we call “heads, eds, and meds”.

In non-family lawyer speak this means:

1. mental health
2. education and
3. invasive medical decisions

These rights are shared by the parents unless otherwise agreed to.

If one parent has given the other reason to doubt their ability to take a particular right seriously they may want to fight to restrict the other parent in that particular area.

Or it could be that one parent travels frequently overseas and is generally unable to confer with when discussing major educational decisions. In such a situation, the parents may agree that the non-travelling parent shall have the exclusive right to make certain decisions on behalf of the child in the event that the other parent is unavailable for a certain period of time.

CONSERVATORSHIP MEANS DIVIDING UP TIME BETWEEN BOTH PARENTS

Divorce Lawyer in Houston – Maybe the topic that causes the most debate among soon to be ex-spouses is the portion of conservatorship that divides up the time of the child with both parents. As we discussed a little earlier in this blog, one parent will have the right to designate the primary residence of the child.

That parent (under a joint managing conservatorship) shall be in possession of the child around 57 percent of the year. It would follow that the other joint managing conservator would have the child around 43 percent of the year.

A Standard Possession Order allows for such a breakdown of time by providing the non-primary parent with visitation on the first, third and fifth weekends of each month in addition to a two-hour period from 6-8 p.m. on Thursday evenings. The Texas Family Code details the specifics of summer and holiday visitation.

The non-primary parent is able to have an extended period of visitation during June or July as well as the ability to alternate the Fall and Winter holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

CONSERVATORSHIP MEANS DEFINING THE AMOUNT OF CHILD SUPPORT TO BE PAID

Divorce Attorney Houston – The other right that parties to a divorce are concerned about from the very earliest stages of the case is the right to pay and to receive child support payments.

Unless the parties agree to not have child support be owed, a court will assign one parent the obligation to pay support and the other will have the right to receive payment of support.

The Texas Family Code has a chart by which child support is broken down as a percentage of a person’s monthly income based on how many children they are responsible to pay for. 20 percent of a parent’s net monthly income would go towards the support of one child, 25 percent towards the support of two children and so on until a maximum of 40 percent of a parent’s net monthly income can be allocated for support.

Typically, this statutorily defined child support percentage is what is applied to the obligor spouse’s income. In the event that the child of the marriage has a special need the court can order the obligor to pay a higher amount if the situation calls for it.

This support can extend beyond the time at which the child graduates high school- the normal stopping point for child support payments in Texas.

WHY YOU SHOULD CONTACT THE ATTORNEYS WITH THE LAW OFFICE OF BRYAN FAGAN

Family law cases are related to the areas of your life that are the most intimate and most important to you. More so than any contract dispute … Continue Reading