My ex-wife and I have enjoyed a 6-year period of shared responsbility for our 9-year-old twins (a boy and a girl). This is now threatened by my ex-wife and latest husband wanting to live in France for a year from next July with my kids, who will then be 10 years old, nearly 11.
I do not feel the experience of being uprooted to a foreign country, albeit one they have visited many times on hoilday, will be a positve one for them and I feel they will loose out significantly from loss of contact with myself. I have expressed many of these feelings to her to no avail. Our current arrangement is Sunday to Tuesday at their mums, Wednesday to Saturday at mine.
I was unmarried to their mother at birth, but was named on the certificate. I then married the mother and before we divorced returned to the registrar to amend the entry etc. Do I have parental rights and is court the only likely way of resolving this form of dispute?
You obviously have what’s called parental responsibility for your children since the divorce. That gives you a position of some strength, although it’s not as good as you might wish under the circumstances.
Before responding to your ex's relocation plans, it's important to understand exactly where you stand legally using our free Moving Away Rights Checker.
If your ex had sole responsibility, then she’d have no problem moving to France with the children, barring a court order preventing it.
As it stands, then, that doesn’t apply, and she would need your oral or written permission in order to move with the children. If the residence order means the kids spend part of the week with you, then she will need your written consent.
Of course, you have the option to withhold your consent, and it certainly sounds as if you’re not too happy about the situation. But you’d be better served if the two of you can come to a mutual agreement on the situation. Why is that a good idea?
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Try our Letter Builder free, here on this site →The simple fact is that your ex can apply to the court to be allowed to take the children abroad, and there’s a fair chance that she’ll be granted permission by the court.
You’d be well advised to talk to your solicitor first to assess your full legal options. If it does come to court, you’ll need to mount good objections to your ex taking the kids abroad to live. Much of that strategy would be on how it affects the kids themselves, since that should be the focus for the court. It’s one that might serve you well, since the court could be encouraged to take testimony from the children themselves.
That’s not good news overall, and certainly not reassuring news, unfortunately. That also makes it a good idea to try to work something out with your ex, if that’s at all possible. Otherwise, there’s going to be even more animosity than there is now, which makes things worse for the children, too.
Keep your tempers in control where you talk to your ex, and keep the focus on the children and what’s best for them. Divorce can be traumatic enough for them, although you’ve all apparently coped with it quite well to date. Keep them at the centre of things, always. We have a longer feature on this subject here.
Your situation may be slightly different. ask a question below ↓ and our editorial team will reply with our advice.
In order to prevent her from talking my daughter I need to first go to court to get parental responsibility, the thing she was given because she is female. The argument of "well they give birth so it's obvious they're a parent" doesn't work anymore, the government separated the birth and registration processes so you no longer register the child at birth in the hospital, it is done after the fact in a completely different building by a different department, the woman bringing the child in for registration has just as much evidence she is the mother as the father would. This process will take many months and cost upwards of £30k. How equal. Meanwhile, I am powerless stop her leaving in the meantime.
The dilemma I have is, is it better to bite the bullet and withhold permission for her to take the children out of the country. knowing that I would lose all good will between the wife and I, ending in divorce. Or do I let her go knowing that once the children are settled in France for a year, I have lost any claim that they belong in the UK and she ca, and probably will, keep them there as long as she wants. If we split up and divorce in the UK, can she still win a court order and take them to France anyway?
We are married but when he comes back on holiday I was going to stop him going back.
I am due to take him to Spain in 5 days, he will not hand over the passport unless I pay half towards the passport as he paid for it!
I am our sons main carer.
Please could you advise
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