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Bm won't share travel costs

newmommy05's picture

SS14 started living with us since august. Before that he lived at BM's which is an hour and half flight away. We have always either drove to get him and bring him back or paid for his flight when he got old enough to fly alone. Now that custody has changed? Bm won't share the travel costs. We have alresdy offered to fly him down yo her. But she will not purchase a return ticket for him. For the record she is supposed to be payjng $100 in child support which she hasnt been paying either. Normally i would say we shouldnt have offered to buy half his flight in he first place. But DH and I are going away for a much needed short vacation without kids. what should we do? Btw the return ticket would only be $100. 

newmommy05's picture

Yes it says travel costs will be shared. But we already booked our trip so basically SS has to go somewhere. And we have mo family around so he needs to be flown somewhere to stay with family.

fourbrats's picture

a visitation time scheduled within the court order or is this him visiting his mom because you are going on vacation? If it's because of the vacation then honestly you and your husband should be paying the travel cost in full. If this is a time that is scheduled within the court order then go after mom for contempt after your trip. Travel costs being shared means mom pays her half on her scheduled visitation. It doesn't mean that the other parent would pay half for other travel.

newmommy05's picture

No we purposely scheduled the trip during his Christmas visit with his mom. She is ignoring us about the return ticket. So far i have booked his ticket there. Should we just wait and see what happens?

fourbrats's picture

and then send a letter of demand. It's better to have the return flight versus waiting to see last minute. 

SonOfABrisketMaker's picture

submit a copy of the receipt to the child support folks and have them add half to her bill?

barbKarin's picture

As a NCP she isnt obligated to exercise visitation I think.

So you could add in the decree that she has to pay half the tickets. But she doesn't have to have him over in the first place.

Thumper's picture

Sounds like BM is not going to exercise her Christmas visitation. She doesnt have too. Nor would she be in contempt IF you thought about taking her to court.  You may want to call your travel agent and add dh's son to your vacation.  Bottom line as cp he is responsible for the care even IF you booked a vacation prior to this info.

Poor kid..i hope he doesnt know about bm and about your vacation. Play it off as a surprise for the family Christmas gift??? Easy recovery doing that.

If I were in your shoes I would be calling the cs division if your town has one. 1 or 2 cs payment misses is ok but more....uhhhh,,,,,

 They will tag her income tax...

newmommy05's picture

She wants the visitation just doesnt want to pay for his flight home. We decided to buy his return ticket. But next time we will not be footing the bill for her visitation time. 

None of the kids are coming on this vacation. Our kids are staying with my parents. No way am I going to add SS to our vacation. I'd rather pay for his flight from Bm's. 

Rags's picture

This has a simple fix. Quit buying the ticket for him to visit her. She buys it or she doesn't see the kid.  You buy the ticket to get him back to you. 

This is how our CO was written.  "Each party shall be repsonsible to provide transportation to bring the minor child form the child's location to the party's location". 

After the first visitation SpermGrandHag approached us to buy a joint ticket to keep their costs down which we did most of the time.  Since he was a toddler he had to be accompanied so it actually took two adult round trip tickets to get him to and from SpermLand visitation.   When she played games, we didn't cooperate by purchasing a joint ticket and her reimbursing us for the SpermClan half of the cost.  We didn't care about the cost.  They did.  So it was a great stick to use when they stepped out of line. When they played bullshit games, they paid a higher one way fare to get him to them.

Time for you and DH to give BM clarity. She want's to see the kid, she buys the one way ticket to get him to her location. You buy the ticket to get him back to your location at the end of visitation. I like the suggestion made for this holiday visit.  You buy the round trip and she buys the next one or... he doesn't visit.  That will leave you exposed to her only buying a one way next time but.... you can always inform her that she buys the next one as a round trip... and see if she has the testicular fortitude to push the action to court. I doubt she will since she is a deadbeat and not paying her CO'd CS.  That is a great stick to beat her with when she gets stupid and at only $100/mo it isn't a huge impact on your family income.  But a deadbeat is a deadbeat and baring her ass should  happen. Just do it at the times that give you the best advantage.

Keep it simple.

 

ndc's picture

Make sure you put in writing that you are buying both tickets for this visitation with the caveat that she will pay the full cost of transportation for the next visitation, lest it be viewed as a gift or she gets the idea that you're always going to deviate from the CO.