The split: relocation & the child’s best interests

• Given the high stakes, the preparation required and the attendant cost, relocation applications are not for the fainthearted.

There is a fine art to relocation applications. The applicant must show the benefits to the child of moving abroad, whilst demonstrating that sufficiently good contact can be maintained with the left behind parent. The outcome of such cases is uncompromising, as Mr Justice Mostyn highlighted in NJ v OV [2014] EWHC 4130 (Fam): ‘The choices are starkly binary. One parent will lose and be bitterly disappointed. There is no scope for finding some comfortable middle ground.’

In this case the mother was successful in her application to relocate to Sweden. Mostyn J expressed his sympathy for the respondent father at para [70]: ‘This decision will compromise, up to a point, the father’s relationship with his daughter and that will be bitterly disappointing for him. As a human, I have to say I personally regret this a great deal.’

Given