Hello everyone. It’s Chris Pritt back again with a new topic in West Virginia Divorce. Today, we’re going to be talking about what you do with holidays when there’s no court order in place.
A very common thing that happens is sometimes two people will be going through a divorce and the holidays will be coming up. In many instances, especially when divorces are filed at the end of the year, or people are just getting their paperwork together and they’re going to be filing in the new year, you have a lot of issues that come up with regards to the holidays. It could be other holidays too, but it most often happens at the end of the year, near Thanksgiving and Christmas, and so forth. This common issue is, what do you do about the holidays?
Now, I can tell you that in most instances, the court will not address things of that sort on an emergency basis. The reason for that is because it’s not an emergency. It may seem very, very important to you, and it probably does cause a lot of heartache in your life, but at the same time, compared to a lot of other things that the court system is addressing, this is down low on the priority list. They’re dealing with things such as domestic violence petitions and all sorts of things that are going to take priority. Now, that’s not to say that a court won’t take something up on an emergency basis, but in my experience, they typically do not do that.
The number one thing you can do is try to negotiate with the person to work out some sort of agreement. If you can work out an agreement with the other person, that would be great, and then you just work together. That’s how most people address those things. What you’re going to be looking at, is you’re going to be looking at family traditions. You’re going to be looking at what is going to be most convenient and most workable for both of you.
There are other things that you can do in these instances. Sometimes what you can do is if a divorce is filed, the court, in some instances, and it really depends on the judge, is if you send in a motion for temporary relief the court may or may not address it. That’s highly based on the judge. Sometimes if you send in a proposed order and along with a motion for temporary relief saying, “I would like to get the kids on these days,” and the other person says, “I want that person to have the child or children on those days,” sometimes the judge will sign the order without a hearing. I’ve found that is less likely to happen than some other things. So it just is based on the circumstances.
So that’s really what your two options are, is you either try to work it out or you send something to the judge and the judge may or may not address it. The way to avoid all of this of course is to file in the new year, and that’s what many people do. However, sometimes it is helpful to get the ball rolling. Then if things can’t be worked out when it comes to holidays, people just say, “Well, I’ll just deal with it.”
So that consists of today’s topic. If you have any questions at all, feel free to give me at (304) 720 4412. You can also email me at chris@prittlaw.com. Have a good day!
