I have custody after my Korean divorce and want to move back to the UK with our daughter — her Korean father says he'll stop it. Can he?

He does not have a veto, but he is not entirely bluffing either. Sole custody under Korean law gives you the right to decide where your daughter lives day to day; it does not, by itself, settle whether she can be permanently removed from the country where the other parent has court-ordered contact and joint parental authority. That question is decided by the family court if the two of you cannot agree — and "just going" with her British passport is the one path that would turn a strong case into a wrongful removal under the Hague Convention, with consequences you do not want. Apply to the court. Your facts are good.

Custody, parental authority and relocation

Korean law separates custody (양육권, yangyukgwon) — the right and duty to raise the child — from parental authority (친권, chingwon), which covers legal decisions on the child's behalf. You hold the first alone and the second jointly. Relocation abroad is treated as a matter affecting both the child's welfare and the other parent's visitation (면접교섭, myeonjeop gyoseop), which is a court-ordered right. In practice, a custodial parent who wants to move a child overseas over the other parent's objection applies to the family court to modify the visitation and, where needed, the parental authority arrangements to permit the move. The court's decision is the permission.

On the passport: your daughter already holds a British passport, so his refusal to sign is not the obstacle he imagines. Korean passport renewals for a minor require parental consent, but that is not what stops or permits an international move; the court order is.

What the court looks at

Korean family courts decide relocation on the child's welfare, weighing the custodial parent's reasons and plans, the child's ties to each parent and to Korea, the practicality of maintaining contact with the non-custodial parent after the move, and the child's age and adaptability. A six-year-old with a primary caregiver, a concrete plan in England — school, housing, family, income — and a proposed contact schedule for her father that is realistic (extended holiday visits in Korea and the UK, scheduled video calls, allocation of travel costs) is the profile in which relocation is permitted. A father who uses his visitation and opposes the move is a serious respondent, and the court will want the contact plan to be more than a gesture.

Timing: with a family investigator's report (가사조사, gasa josa) and contested hearings, several months to a year. Mediation (조정, jojeong) comes first and sometimes produces an agreed order — an agreed relocation with a strong contact plan is what a well-advised father accepts once he understands that the alternative is a court deciding it.

If you just go

Korea and the UK are both parties to the Hague Child Abduction Convention. Your daughter's habitual residence is Korea. Removing her without the father's consent or a court order, when he holds rights of custody in the Convention sense — joint parental authority and court-ordered contact are generally treated as such — is wrongful removal. He would apply through the Korean Central Authority for her return; an English court would hear it on an expedited basis and, absent one of the narrow exceptions, order her back to Korea. You would then be litigating relocation in Korea from a much worse position, as the parent who took the child. His "kidnapping" threat corresponds, loosely, to that process, and to possible criminal exposure in Korea. It is the one way to lose a case you are currently positioned to win.

Children, property and support

Child support (양육비, yangyukbi) continues after relocation and is enforceable in Korea against him. The contact plan should also address who bears travel costs; courts commonly allocate them.

What this means for your stay in Korea

Nothing about applying to the court affects your F-6. If the court permits relocation, your status in Korea becomes moot on departure; the immigration side is for the Immigration Office. MEGA X handles the relocation case.

Practical insight

Relocation cases are won on the contact plan. Mothers who arrive at mediation with a moving date and no proposal for the father's time lose the sympathy of a court that sees the move as the end of a relationship. Mothers who arrive with a plan that gives him more total days than alternate weekends — summers, winters, video calls at set times, his travel costs partly covered — frequently leave mediation with an agreed order. The second point: start now. Every month of settled life in Korea after the divorce is a month the court weighs on the side of stability.

Send us the divorce record and a page on your plans in England, and we can draft the contact proposal that goes in front of him first — by text consultation or at +82-2-522-3959.

— MEGA X Law Firm Korea, International Family Law Team