VIRGINIA Part 36

What is joint custody?

Joint custody could mean a few things:

Joint legal custody: Both parents share the power to make major decisions about the child’s well-being, even though the child’s primary residence may be with one parent.

Joint physical custody: The child will split his/her time between both parents’ homes. It does not necessarily mean that the child will live with each parent 50% of the time -- the time will be split so that the child will have a lot of contact with both parents.*