When Can a Custody Order Be Modified?
Georgia allows custody orders to be changed — but only when there has been a material change in circumstances and the change serves the child’s best interests.
Child custody arrangements that worked when your child was four may not work when they are fourteen. Georgia law allows custody orders to be modified, but not simply because one parent wants a change.
The two-part test
To modify a custody order, you generally must show both of the following:
- A material change in circumstances affecting the child
- That the modification is in the child’s best interests
What counts as a material change
Courts have found material changes in a range of situations — a parent relocating, a significant change in work schedule, remarriage, a decline in the child’s school performance, or a parent repeatedly interfering with the other’s parenting time.
What does not usually qualify: ordinary disagreements, a parent’s new relationship on its own, or the simple passage of time.
Children’s preferences
In Georgia, a child who is 14 or older may elect which parent to live with, though a judge can override that election if it would not serve the child’s best interests. Judges may also consider the wishes of children as young as 11.
Document everything. Dates, messages, and missed exchanges carry far more weight than recollection.
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