My Son's Father Moved Out of State, What Rights Does He Have

My question involves a child custody case from the State of: Oregon

My son's father recently moved to Washington without any warning, he has had my son only one day a week for the past year, and has been paying some child support. There has been no parenting plan or legal order of any kind. Now he is in Washington and demanding that he get to see my son, but he moved in with his mother, who has 10 people in a 3 bedroom house, and every time my son has visited he has returned with head lice.

The house is filthy and she has lost 2 of her grand kids that she was raising to cps, more than once. So needless to say, for the well being of my son, I do not want him there. So I told him that if he stayed at a different family members house and came every other weekend to pick him up and drop him off at a specific time, we could sign a parenting plan and he could have visitation. He is arguing saying that I am asking too much.

My question is, does he have any rights because he moved out of state? I have been told in the past that a judge would grant him no rights because our son was born in Oregon, not Washington. I have also been told that I could potentially make him come here to have visitation since he moved out of state. I have never dealt with anything like this so I am very lost and so very afraid for my baby.

If Dad wants to set up visitation through the courts, he'll have to file in Oregon.

Dad'll be able to have Junior visit in Washington.

Ditto what Boo said and wanted to add that you will likely have no say in whether or not he takes the child to his mother's house. What he does on his time is no concern of yours unless it can be proven that she is of harm to him but that is totally up to the judge.

When/if you do go to court, ask that he be responsible for transportation since he was the one that moved away from the children. Although there is currently no court order in place, it could be ordered.

And to clarify even further...

Mom, think about this for a sec - do you really think that the court would refuse to give visitation to oh, I don't know... a military member who lives out of state?

Eventually he's going to get the "standard" parenting plan including overnights, weekends and entire weeks in the summer. Time to accept that.