Custodial parents can have either legal and/or physical custody. Here’s what to know about the difference between legal vs physical custody.
Legal custody is a parent’s responsibility to make decisions regarding a child’s education, health, and welfare. On the other hand, physical custody is a parent’s right to reside with a child. Legal and physical custody can be sole, or joint between parents.
Related: Child Custody FAQs in California
Legal Custody
Legal custody gives parents the right and duty to make long-term, major decisions concerning a child’s welfare, including:
- Choice of school
- Medical care
- Travel
- Religious upbringing
- Cultural upbringing
- Extracurricular activities
Joint and Sole Legal Custody
Joint legal custody gives both parents the right to make decisions regarding a child’s welfare. For the best interests of the child, the state may award parents joint legal custody unless a parent is shown unfit.
A parent with a history of child abuse, domestic violence, substance abuse, or psychiatric illness may be deemed unfit.
Related: How Mental Health Issues Affect Child Custody in California
If one parent is unfit for legal custody, the other parent may be granted sole legal custody, providing one parent full authority on all decisions concerning the child. Parents with sole legal custody do not need to consult the other parent when making decisions regarding the child’s upbringing.
Physical Custody
Physical custody refers to the parent the child lives with. Similar to legal custody, courts typically prefer for parents to share physical custody for the child to have contact with both parents.
Joint and Sole Physical Custody
In joint physical custody arrangements, a child lives with both parents, and may entail a 50/50 split and up to a 60/40 split. Since a child in joint physical custody arrangements resides in both parents’ households, the child’s primary residence is whichever home the child spends most time in. Joint physical custody is only feasible when parents live close enough together so that children are able to continue school and other activities.
Sole physical custody may be granted to only one parent if parents live far apart. A parent may also be granted sole physical custody if the other parent is legally deemed unfit. In cases of sole physical custody, children reside with one parent the majority if not the entirety of time. The parent the child spends the majority of time with is the custodial parent. The non-custodial parent might instead be awarded visitation rights as it is in the best interest of the child to have regular contact with both parents.
As having regular contact with both parents is often in the best interests of the child, non-custodial parents may be awarded visitation rights.
Non-custodial parents could be granted one of many different types of visitation:
- Reasonable visitation
- In reasonable visitation assignments, parents request a reasonable amount of time to spend with a child, which a judge may award.
- Fixed visitation
- Courts may conceive a fixed visitation schedule for parents unable to agree on a visitation arrangement, stating specific days and times a non-custodial parent is allowed to be with the child.
- Supervised visitation
- Supervised visitation might still be granted to parents deemed unfit. The parent would only be able to visit their child under another individual’s supervision, for example, a social worker. Supervised visitations are pre-scheduled, typically for an hour, and may take place at the custodial parent’s house or visitation facility.
Custody Combinations
Parents can have either joint or sole legal and physical custody depending on terms of custody agreements, the fitness of the parents, and the court’s decision.
Parents can agree to have fully joint custody, sharing both legal and physical custody of the child and cooperating to raise the child.
Related: Sole Legal and Physical Custody in California
One parent may have sole legal rights but share physical custody of the child., allowing one parent to make all long-term decisions concerning a child residing with both parents.
Vice versa, one parent could have sole physical custody and retain joint legal custody.
In a co-parenting visitation schedule, the parent with legal and physical custody must consider a co-parent with legal but not physical custody’s wishes regarding the child.
Finally, a parent could be solely awarded both legal and physical rights. A non-custodial parent may have limited visitation and must not be consulted when making major decisions regarding the child’s welfare.
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If you or a loved one would like to know more about legal custody vs. physical custody in California, get your free consultation with one of our child custody attorneys today!