When a custodial parent is violating a court order in Texas, your remedy is a Motion for Enforcement filed in the court that issued the order. A judge can hold the other parent in contempt, impose fines up to $500 and jail time up to six months per violation, order make-up time with your child, and require the violating parent to pay your attorney’s fees.1State of Texas. Texas Government Code Section 21.002 – Contempt of Court The order became enforceable the moment the judge signed it, and the enforcement process is designed to work for parents who come in with specific, documented violations rather than general complaints.
What Counts as a Violation
Any failure to follow the written order counts, not just an outright refusal to hand over the child. Returning the child late, picking up or dropping off at the wrong location, blocking phone contact, making unilateral schedule changes, and failing to appear at the agreed exchange point are all enforceable. Missed child support payments and missed medical support payments are independently enforceable, and medical support carries the same weight as child support.2Office of the Attorney General of Texas. Medical Support General Information
Informal deviations from the order are only informal while both parents agree to them. The moment one parent stops agreeing, both must follow the written order exactly as the judge signed it.3Texas Access. Standard Possession Order and Parenting Time A pattern of letting the custodial parent skip exchanges does not amend the order, but it can give that parent a defense for the specific periods you waived.
One boundary worth knowing: the Texas Attorney General’s office enforces child support but does not enforce visitation.4Texas Child Support Portal. Frequently Asked Questions If your issue is denied possession or access, you have to file the enforcement action yourself in family court.
Document Every Violation Before You File
Texas law requires your enforcement motion to state the specific date, place, and time of each instance the other parent failed to comply.5State of Texas. Texas Family Code Section 157.002 – Contents of Motion A motion that says the other parent is “difficult” or “always late” will not survive. Judges need a list of incidents they can match against the order.
Start a written log the first time a violation occurs. For each incident record the date, the time the exchange was supposed to happen, the location the order specifies, what actually occurred, and any witnesses. Save every text, email, and voicemail about exchanges and screenshot conversation threads in full. Preserving the whole thread, not isolated messages, lets the court see context and makes the messages easier to authenticate at the hearing. Authentication generally means showing that messages are what they appear to be, which you can establish through details only the other parent would know or through phone records tying the messages to specific numbers on specific dates.
Filing the Motion for Enforcement
The motion goes in the court that has continuing, exclusive jurisdiction over your case, which is almost always the court that signed the original order. By statute, the motion must identify the specific provision of the order that was violated, describe how the other parent failed to comply, state the relief you want, and be signed by you or your attorney.5State of Texas. Texas Family Code Section 157.002 – Contents of Motion
Pull the cause number from your original case and the date the judge signed the order. Reference the exact paragraph or section number you say was violated. For a possession schedule, each alleged violation needs its own entry with date, place, and time. You can also allege that the other parent has a pattern of repeated violations and that similar violations are likely to continue before the hearing.5State of Texas. Texas Family Code Section 157.002 – Contents of Motion
TexasLawHelp.org publishes a free fill-in-the-blank enforcement form that walks self-represented parents through the required elements and includes a possession journal formatted as an exhibit. Filing with the District Clerk usually costs around $80, though the exact fee varies by county. A motion that omits the specific provision violated or fails to list dates can be dismissed on technical grounds, so cross-reference every allegation against the exact language of your order before you file.
Service and the Hearing
After the clerk accepts your motion, the other parent must be formally served. A private process server or county constable delivers the papers, typically for $75 to $150 depending on the provider and county. The court cannot proceed until service is confirmed.
Once service is on file, the court sets a hearing. At the hearing you have to show the court the exact provisions of the order, prove the other parent knew about them, and prove each violation happened as you described. If the court is considering criminal contempt penalties like fines or jail, the standard of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt. Judges in enforcement hearings compare the language of the order against what actually happened on specific dates. Your log, messages, and corroborating records are what carry the hearing.
Fines, Jail, and Community Supervision
When a judge finds a parent in contempt, the penalties apply to each proven violation individually: up to $500 and up to six months in jail per violation, or both.1State of Texas. Texas Government Code Section 21.002 – Contempt of Court If you have documented ten denied weekends, the court can in theory impose penalties for each. In practice, judges weigh severity and pattern.
Total confinement is capped at 18 months for criminal contempt, even across multiple findings. For civil contempt, which exists to coerce compliance rather than to punish, the cap is the lesser of 18 months or the time until the parent complies with the order.1State of Texas. Texas Government Code Section 21.002 – Contempt of Court A parent jailed for civil contempt effectively holds the key to their own release by agreeing to follow the order.
Judges do not always go straight to jail. If the parent started complying after the motion was filed or made a genuine effort, the judge can find them in contempt but suspend the sentence and place them on community supervision. Conditions can include parenting classes, counseling, mediation, or reporting to a supervision officer, and the judge can require payment of court costs and attorney’s fees as a condition.
Make-Up Time and Attorney’s Fees
Two remedies often matter more to the denied parent than fines or jail do.
The court can order additional periods of possession to compensate for time you lost. Make-up periods must be the same type and duration as the visitation that was denied, and you get to choose when they occur. Three missed weekends means three make-up weekends. All make-up time has to happen within two years of the court’s finding that your access was denied.6Justia Law. Texas Family Code Chapter 157 – Enforcement
When the court finds a parent failed to comply with a possession or access order, the statute says the judge “shall order” that parent to pay your reasonable attorney’s fees and all court costs.6Justia Law. Texas Family Code Chapter 157 – Enforcement This is mandatory in most situations. The judge can decline only for good cause and must put the reasons on the record. For parents who hesitate to pursue enforcement because of legal fees, this provision shifts the cost to the parent who caused the problem.
The court can also require the violating parent to post a bond or other security to guarantee future compliance. Forfeiting that bond later is not a defense in any subsequent contempt proceeding.
Defenses the Other Parent Can Raise
Not every missed exchange ends in a contempt finding. The custodial parent can argue they lacked the ability to comply, made a good-faith effort to comply, or had no actual knowledge of the specific provision they are accused of violating.7Justia Law. Texas Family Code Chapter 157 Subchapter A – Enforcement Inability to comply means something real, like a hospitalized child, not a convenient excuse.
Voluntary relinquishment is another common defense. If you told the custodial parent they could keep the child for a weekend and later tried to count that weekend as a violation, they can raise your relinquishment. If the period you voluntarily gave up exceeded the time specified in the order, that defense can apply to the entire contempt proceeding.7Justia Law. Texas Family Code Chapter 157 Subchapter A – Enforcement The custodial parent can also argue they were following a conflicting restraining order or injunction from another court and genuinely did not know about the possession order.
These defenses put the burden on the custodial parent, but they are real obstacles. If the other parent has a plausible story on a particular date, the judge may decline to find contempt on that violation even if the technical breach happened.
When Modification Is the Better Tool
Enforcement and modification do different things. Enforcement punishes past violations of the current order and forces compliance going forward. Modification changes the order itself because circumstances have shifted.
If the custodial parent has moved, the child’s needs have changed, or the current schedule no longer fits for legitimate reasons, enforcement alone will not fix the underlying problem. You might win a contempt finding and still face the same disputes under the same unworkable schedule. In those situations, filing a modification suit alongside or instead of an enforcement motion makes more sense.
You can pursue both at once. A pending modification suit is never a defense to enforcement of the existing order. Until a judge signs a new order, the old one is fully enforceable, and the other parent has to follow it.
If the Custodial Parent Has Moved Out of State or Country
Federal law gives priority jurisdiction to the child’s “home state,” defined as the state where the child lived with a parent for at least six months before a custody petition was filed. When a parent relocates with the child, the original state keeps home-state status for six additional months after the move, and retains continuing jurisdiction as long as the child or one parent still lives there and state law allows it.8Congressional Research Service. Child Custody and Support Frequently Asked Questions
Texas adopted the Uniform Child-Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act in Family Code Chapter 152, which provides a process for registering and enforcing out-of-state custody orders. If you have a Texas order and the other parent moves away, you can register the Texas order in the new state and seek enforcement there. The other parent has 30 days to contest the registration; if they do not, the order is confirmed and enforceable in the new state as if it were local.
If a parent takes a child out of the country in violation of a custody order, the matter escalates to federal law. Removing a child under 16 from the United States with intent to obstruct another parent’s custody rights is a federal crime punishable by up to three years in prison.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1204 – International Parental Kidnapping Limited defenses exist, including fleeing domestic violence or acting within the terms of a valid custody order.