Moving With a Child in Texas

A Texas order that settles where a child lives can do it in one sentence. Easy to sign, easy to forget, and then it is the whole case on the day a job comes up three hundred miles away.

A geographic restriction is not a background rule that follows every Texas parent. It exists only because an order created it, and binds only as far as that order's words reach. The chapter everyone opens first, chapter 153 of the Family Code, contains no section called relocation and no test for whether a move is permitted. The words geographic and geographical appear there six times. Five of them sit in the residence-designation provisions, which draw an area when the order is made rather than govern crossing one later. The sixth sits in section 153.134(a)(5), which lists the geographical proximity of the parents' residences among the factors a court weighs before appointing joint managing conservators, a conservatorship factor and not a rule about moving.

Where the restriction in your order came from

Two sections put it there. Without an agreed plan, section 153.134(b)(1) governs an order appointing joint managing conservators. It designates the conservator with the exclusive right to determine the child's primary residence, then takes one of exactly two paths. Either it establishes, "until modified by further order, a geographic area within which the conservator shall maintain the child's primary residence," or it specifies that this conservator "may determine the child's primary residence without regard to geographic location." No third path and no default.

An agreed plan makes the same choice. Section 153.133(a) lets a court appoint joint managing conservators on a written plan only if the plan satisfies all six of subsections (a)(1) through (a)(6). The first of the six is the residence provision: the plan must name the conservator holding the exclusive right and either establish the geographic area for the primary residence or specify that it may be chosen without regard to geographic location. Subsection (c) adds a route people forget: a plan meeting subsections (a)(2) through (6) that simply puts the child's primary residence "within a specified geographic area" must be adopted too, and it names no holder of that right at all.

Under section 153.132(1), a parent appointed sole managing conservator holds the right to designate the child's primary residence exclusively, unless a court order limits it. Section 153.007 gives an agreed plan its force: where the court finds the plan is in the child's best interest, the court renders an order in accordance with it. Section 153.001(a) supplies the policy underneath, from frequent and continuing contact to a safe, stable, and nonviolent environment. That is policy, not a rule for deciding a move.

What the restriction actually reaches

One thing: where the child's primary residence may be maintained. Both sections use that language and no other. Nor does a restriction lapse because someone ignores it: the area holds until modified by a further order, which is why a violated order goes to enforcement under chapter 157, the subject of the enforcement guide.

It is not the possession-schedule distance rule either. Sections 153.312, 153.313, and 153.3171 key a possessory conservator's schedule to the distance between that parent and the child, at thresholds of 100 miles and 50 miles, and the guide to the standard possession order works through them. None creates a residence restriction or decides a move.

Nor does any section of chapter 153 supply a standard for the move itself: no test, no factor list, no mileage at which a move becomes permissible. A parent who wants the child's primary residence outside the area an order fixed is asking the court to modify it.

Changing it is a chapter 156 modification suit

Section 156.101(a) is the general gate for changing conservatorship terms or possession and access, and an area written into an order is one of them. The change must serve the child's best interest, and one of three further things must also be true.

The first is changed circumstances: those of the child, of a conservator, or of another party the order affects, materially and substantially changed, dated from whichever came first, rendition of the order or the signing of a mediated or collaborative law settlement agreement on which the order is based. The second is a child at least 12 who has told the court in chambers, under section 153.009, which person the child prefers to hold that exclusive right. The third is a conservator who holds it and has voluntarily relinquished primary care and possession to another person for at least six months, a ground subsection (b) withdraws where the handover was temporary during the conservator's temporary military duty, military deployment, or military mobilization.

The first year, and the affidavit that guards it

Section 156.102 sets a second gate in front of the first, narrower than its reputation. By its own terms it governs a suit seeking to modify the designation of the person who holds the exclusive right over the child's primary residence, and the chapter text carries no separate one-year affidavit rule aimed at the geographic area alone. Where it applies, a suit filed inside one year of the order, dated again from whichever came first, rendition or the signed settlement agreement underneath it, must arrive with an affidavit stating supporting facts plus at least one of three specific allegations:

• that the child's present environment may endanger physical health or significantly impair emotional development;
• that the parent holding the residence right is the one seeking the change or consenting to it, and that the change serves the child's best interest; or
• that this parent gave up primary care and possession voluntarily for six months or longer, again with the change serving the child's best interest.

Under section 156.102(c) the court reads the affidavit first. Unless the facts in it are adequate to support one of those allegations, the court shall deny the relief sought and refuse to schedule a hearing. No hearing at all. Subsection (d) exempts a person whose relinquishment was temporary during military service as section 153.701 defines it.

What a temporary order may not do while the suit is pending

Section 156.006(a) permits temporary orders in a modification suit. Subsection (b) bars one class of them: while the suit is pending the court may not render a temporary order that has the effect of creating or changing the designation of the person with the exclusive right over the child's primary residence, or the effect of "creating a geographic area, or changing or eliminating the geographic area, within which a conservator must maintain the child's primary residence," under the final order. Eliminating is on that list deliberately.

The bar lifts only where the temporary order is in the child's best interest and one of three grounds applies: the order is necessary because the child's circumstances as they now stand would significantly impair the physical health or the emotional development of the child; the person designated in the final order has voluntarily relinquished primary care and possession of the child for more than six months; or the child is 12 or older and has expressed a preference in chambers, under section 153.009, about who holds that exclusive right.

The first ground carries its own screen. Subsection (b-1) requires an affidavit, on personal knowledge or on belief based on a representation from someone with personal knowledge, stating facts that support the impairment allegation, and the court declines to set a hearing unless those facts are adequate. Subsection (c) removes the relinquishment ground for a conservator who temporarily gave up primary care during military service covered by section 153.701.

The question the statutes leave open

Neither chapter says whether a particular move will be allowed. Chapter 153 supplies the boundary; chapter 156 supplies the grounds and the gates. Past that the outcome rests on best interest and evidence, case by case, and no provision cited here settles it in advance.

The method starts with the order rather than the code. Find the paragraph naming who determines the child's primary residence and read what follows: an area established until further order, a statement that no geographic limit applies, or an agreed plan fixing the residence inside an area without naming anyone. Then read chapter 156 as it stands, because 156.101, 156.102, and 156.006 are the gates any change must pass. Standards for every other modification request live in the guide to modifying custody or support. The wider picture runs across the Texas family law guides. Each linked section number above opens the enacted text, the rule the full guide library is written to.