Filing For Visitation

[acher]

My brother has two children who relocated from the bay area to southern California with their mother. We are now finding out that we should have had a legal visitation order in place before she left because she is making it very hard to see the kids. My question is does my brother need to file an order in the county they now reside in or can he file here where we live? It would be very hard to travel 400 mile away to start this process.... please help! Thanks

[Radmund]

Dear Amanda

I am afraid that he will have to seek an order where the children reside. If he had done it before they moved, he could have the court where you live have jurisdiction.. He can try to file for an order where he resides, but it will probably be transferred to the County where the children reside. Courts don't like to do more than they have to, and if there is a court closer to where the kids live, they will prefer that the court where the kids live have to deal with it. Sorry.