Virginia parents can petition a court to make changes to an existing court order regarding their children. The court always has children’s best interests at the forefront when making child custody, visitation or child support decisions. These decisions, however, are not cast in stone, and under certain circumstances, the court may determine that modifying a signed agreement is warranted. Britney Spears and her former partner, Kevin Federline, recently sought to modify their co-parenting plan.
Spears and Federline share two sons, ages 13 and 12. Under the new plan, the boys will split their time with their parents 70/30. Spears has the lesser amount but her visits will be unsupervised. The former couple have been living separate lives for approximately 12 years.
While the modified agreement has been formally approved by the court, Spears and Federline reportedly had been veering from an earlier agreed-upon plan with a 50/50 custody share. They then decided to file a petition for the 70/30 agreement in court after seeing how well it was working for all involved. Spears has made it no secret that she would like to have more time with her sons; however, Federline has not agreed to additional visitation time at this point.
Some say his hesitance is because of Spears’ past history with mental health issues. She has indeed been treated for such issues but that does not necessarily mean she would be unfit for additional parenting time. Filing a formal child custody petition in court is always the best route to take if one or both Virginia parents want to change the certain aspects of an existing court order.