Q: I moved out of state w/ my child Nov ‘18 without notifying the court. 14 months later the father has reopened the case.
There are reasons I left. Mainly because my son, 13 then, refused to see his father Bc of abuse accusations and threats of his father to kill me in front of my son. The father then cut off all contact, including blocking my number. Financially we were on the verge of homelessness so we moved to NC from MD with my Mom. Feb 2019 we did online legal mediation and came to an agreement that he would relinquish visitation if I removed him from Child support and forgave $50k in arrears. However, we never received those papers. There’s much more, but my question is am I going to lose custody of my son regardless of the reasons?
A:
Regardless of the reasons, you still needed to follow the correct process by going through the court. Will you lose custody? Probably not. However, the court will not be happy with you which will make it much harder to present your case.
Online mediation does not change a court order. If an agreement signed by both of you was not submitted to the court, the order remains in full force and effect.
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