This is a scenario which is common, and more likely than not when the birth father is no longer in contact or there is an order for no contact. You may have formed a long-standing relationship with your partner, who has been in your child’s life for a relatively long period of time and wish to give them the same rights for a number of reasons, but most importantly, in the case of an emergency whereby you may not be contactable.
There are a number of ways in which your partner, the stepparent can acquire parental responsibility, but caution must be taken to understand each option along with the advantages and disadvantages.
1. Parental responsibility agreement/order
If you and your new partner are married, you could enter into a Parental Responsibility Agreement or obtain a Parental Responsibility Order by way of a Court Application. If entering into a Parental Responsibility Agreement, then you would need to obtain consent from everyone who has parental responsibility. The birth father would still retain his parental responsibility.
2. Child Arrangements Order – ‘Live With’
There is an option to make an application to the Court for the child to live with the stepparent. If such an Order is made, then the stepparent will automatically be granted parental responsibility and will remain in force for the duration of the Order. However, as the birth father will still have parental responsibility you will still need to seek his consent if you are wanting to remove the child from the jurisdiction for more than a month or change their name.
3. Special guardianship
The stepparent can make an application to become the child’s guardian, however, this option may not be practical as this would mean that the guardian can exercise parental responsibility to the exclusions of all other parents with parental responsibility including the mother.
4. Delegating parental responsibility
You can delegate parental responsibility to the stepparent, but you will still be left with the issue of seeking the birth father’s consent when removing the child from the jurisdiction for a period of more than a month and changing the child’s name. The delegation of parental responsibility is not legally binding.
5. Stepparent adoption
It is now possible for the stepparent to make an application to adopt, rather than making a joint application which would mean that you (the mother) would lose her parental responsibility. The criteria to be able to make such an application is specific and include:
- The applicant being over the age of 21;
- Being domiciled in the UK or habitually resident for a year prior to the application;
- The child in question must be below the age of 18;
- The child must have lived with the applicant (stepparent) for six continuous months prior to the application; and
- The Applicant must have given the appropriate local authority written notice of their intention to apply to adopt a child which must have been given at least three months and no more than two years prior to the application.
There is a requirement for all persons with parental responsibility to consent to such an application, and this may involve lengthy Court proceedings should there be a disagreement.
How can we help?
Rina Mistry is a Senior Associate in our expert Family Law team.
If you need further advice on the subjects discussed above, please contact us and we will be happy to discuss your circumstances in more detail and give you more information about the services that our family law solicitors can provide along with details of our hourly rates and fixed fee services.
For more information or advice, please call Rina or another member of our team in Derby, Leicester or Nottingham on 0800 024 1976 or contact us via our online form.
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