Types of Child Custody Agreements

Before making your custody agreement, it is helpful to know the types of child custody agreements that are possible. Here is a brief overview of the types of agreements you can have.

1. Sole legal custody with sole physical custody. Legal custody refers to the right and responsibility that parents have to make decisions for the child and physical custody refers to the actual physical time that parents have the children in their care. So, in a sole legal custody and sole physical custody agreement one parent has the sole responsibility to make decisions for the child, and the child resides primarily with that parent. The other parent will have visitation with the child.

2. Joint legal custody with sole physical custody. In this arrangement, the parents share and divide the responsibility to make decisions for the children. The parents can each be responsible for different types of decisions, or the parents can both have an input into every decision. The child lives primarily with one parent and visits the other parent.

3. Joint legal custody and joint physical custody. With a joint custody agreement, the parents agree to share everything about raising the child. They both have a say in legal decisions, and they also have a joint custody schedule. A joint custody schedule doesn’t mean that each parent gets exactly half of the time with the children. Instead, it means that the child spends significant time with both parents.

Custody X Change is custody software that can help parents make any of these types of agreements. With the software, a mother and father can make a complete custody and visitation schedule and then include provisions about legal custody and other issues. Thus they can have a personalized agreement for their situation.