The Child Relocation Statute (RCW 26.09.430-560) requires the parent with whom the child resides primarily to give the other parent 60 days notice of any plan to move outside his or her present school district. If you can’t give 60 days notice (for example, because you did not know about the move in time) you need to give notice as soon as you can, and in any case within five days of learning of the move.
Use the correct form (“Notice of Intended Relocation of a Child”), and fill it out to the best of your ability. It is especially important to say when you plan to move with the child, where the child is going, and how you and the child can be contacted after the move. You can get the form from the Washington State Courts website here: http://www.courts.wa.gov/forms/index.cfm?fa=forms.contribute&formID=6
The other parent then has 30 days to object to the move. That objection also requires a special form (“Objection to Relocation”) which you can find here: http://www.courts.wa.gov/forms/index.cfm?fa=forms.contribute&formID=57
A local move (one which is just inside the present school district) does not require any special formalities: the law says that you have to give the other parent “actual notice by any reasonable means.” It’s common sense to put this notice in writing and to keep a copy for your records, even though you don’t have to use any particular form. The other parent can’t object to a move within the present school district.
If you are not the parent with whom the child resides primarily, then the notice requirements don’t apply to you. You don’t have to give the other parent notice if you intend to move. However, many parenting plans include provisions requiring both parents to keep each other informed of their residential address and contact telephone number at all times. If your parenting plan has such a provision, you should follow it.
If you want to know what happens after an objection is filed, and what factors the court considers when deciding whether a child can move, read the relocation statute here: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=26.09.430
