After divorce who do the children live with? Can I get joint custody?
In most divorce and separation cases, the children will continue to live with the primary caregiver. There is, however, no legal entitlement for this to occur.
The Australian Family Law Act requires the Court to consider shared care of the children when an Order is made for equal shared parental responsibility for a child. This occurs where it is considered to be both in the child’s best interest and reasonably practical to do so.
Shared care arrangements for children after divorce and separation are more likely to be considered by the Family Law Court in circumstances where the parents:
1. live within a short distance of one another
2. have a low level of inter-parental conflict
3. can demonstrate a history of an effective communication between the parents with respect to the children’s issues.
See Family Law case examples on the Family Law blogsite
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