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Your Software is Great

"I just want to let you know that your software is great and easy to use. My son’s mom and I don’t agree on much, but we do try to make adjustments to accommodate my son’s many activities. It is great to get my son’s baseball schedule in March, look at my Custody Xchange calendar, and know that what nights in April, May, and June we are going to switch. Thanks again."

Frank Ryan
Meriden, CT

The Judge Adopted my Plan

"It can be tailored made to fit your unique schedule with holidays and vacations, plus it breaks the time share down so you can come up with a true shared parenting schedule. It helped me so much and I was pro se against a family law specialist, the judge adopted my plan that I came up with using custody exchange. Thank you so much it was invaluable."

Stacie Staples
Arroyo Grande, CA

I Recommend it to Other Family Law Practitioners

"I have used the Custody X Software in some complicated custody cases and have found it a very useful tool. Many people are very visual and the ability to lay out custody schedules years in advance has been helpful. I have found the software very easy to use and would highly recommend it to other family law practitioners."

Meredith W. Ditchen
Woodstock, GA
www.ditchenlaw.com

Michigan Custody Agreement

Custody X Change can help you create a perfect
custody agreement in Michigan.

How to Create Your Child Custody Agreement in Michigan (MI)

Creating your child custody agreement is the most important thing you'll do in your custody situation. The custody agreement contains the information about how parents will divide parental responsibility, share time with the children, and continue to care and provide for the children. The custody agreement turns into the custody order, making it a legal document that the parents must follow. Therefore, it is crucial that parents take the time and effort to make the best custody agreement possible.

Creating a Child Custody Agreement

The first step in making your child custody agreement is to understand the definitions of physical custody and legal custody.

Physical custody means the time the child is with the parent and in the parent's care.
Physical custody can be given to one parent--a sole physical custody agreement--with visitation to the other parent, or parents may have a joint physical custody agreement where they both spend significant time caring for the children (although, in a joint custody agreement, the time doesn't have to be exactly equal).
Legal custody refers to the rights and responsibilities the parents have over making decisions for the child. This includes decisions about education, medical and dental care, religion, child care, driving privileges, extra-curricular activities, etc.
A mother or father may have sole legal custody over the children, or they may share joint legal custody. Parents can have joint legal custody without sharing joint physical custody.

Basically, your custody agreement contains information about how you and the other parent will share and divide legal and physical custody and a plan for how you will make those arrangements work.

For physical custody, the parents should include a complete custody and visitation schedule, a holiday schedule, and include any days or events where the custody situation changes.
For legal custody, the agreement should contain the process for how decisions will be made and how the decision making responsibility will be shared.
Parents can also include more provisions in their agreement that provide rules that help the parents work out custody issues. For example, many agreements have provisions that outline how transportation for visits will be handled.
Anything else that will help the custody arrangements go more smoothly and help the parents cooperate should also be put in the agreement.

Specific Information for Your Michigan Custody Agreement

In Michigan, parents who are not able to work out a custody agreement are referred to a Friend of the Court.
This person will help the father and mother work out a reasonable agreement that is in the best interest of the child.
If the parents are still unable to cooperate, they should each create a custody agreement to present to the court.
The agreement should have reasonable parenting time for both the mother and the father or the judge will not accept it. Every county has a policy explaining what reasonable time should be.
The parents will show their agreements to the judge and the judge will determine what the final custody agreement.

How Custody X Change can Help

Custody X Change is child custody software that lets parents create custody agreements that have all of the information about physical and legal custody. The program helps you make an agreement that the court will accept and make into a custody order. With the software you can:

Make a complete custody and visitation schedule with a repeating cycle of custody, a holiday schedule, vacation time, and special events.
Include information about how legal custody will be divided and shared between the parents.
View the exact timeshare percentage that each parent has with the children so you can create the best schedule for your situation.
Add important provisions and stipulations to help the custody arrangements work better.
Print professional reports that contain your agreement, including a written and calendar form of the custody schedule, a list of the included provisions, and a detailed timeshare percentage document.
Track what is going on with your custody situation by marking the actual time that each parent has the children, keeping a visitation journal, and printing a report that shows the difference between actual and scheduled time with the children.
Export all of the reports to Word, PDF, and Excel.
Sync your custody and visitation schedule to your Blackberry, iPhone, Palm/PDA, Outlook, Google Calendar, Yahoo Calendar, Windows Live, etc.

Michigan Parents Use Custody X Change To

Create a reasonable custody agreement that meets the needs of your child and that the court will accept.
Work together with the other parent to make a shared custody agreement that both parents support and like.
Prepare sample custody agreements to show the other parent or to use when working with a Friend of the Court.
Save money in legal fees by doing yourself what you pay an attorney to do, or by supplementing the work your attorney is doing.
Represent yourself in court by using the documents to show your custody agreement.
Make a custody and visitation schedule that gives reasonable parenting time to both parents and use the timeshare percentage to figure it out.
Add provisions that make the agreement work more smoothly and that benefit your child.
Track the actual parenting time that each parent has with the children so you know the schedule is being followed.
Keep a custody and visitation journal so you document what is going on in your situation.
Pay or receive the right amount of child support by using an accurate timeshare percentage in the calculation.
Eliminate the stress and tension from your custody arrangements because you have a great agreement that everyone supports.

You can get a free thirty day trial of Custody X Change by entering your name and email at the top of the page. Join the others in Michigan who have found the easy way to make the best child custody agreement.

The top twenty cities in Michigan (by population, US Census Bureau, 2008) are: Detroit, Grand Rapids, Warren, Sterling Heights, Ann Arbor, Lansing, Flint, Clinton, Livonia, Dearborn, Canton, Troy, Westland, Farmington Hills, Southfield, Kalamazoo, Shelby, Waterford, Wyoming, Rochester Hills.

Additional state custody agreement articles you might want to consider:

Related article (not state-specific): Custody Agreement.

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