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Hi All,
Just wondering if anyone can provide any advise regarding what I procedures I need to go through to enforce a residence order?
A little background:
I have two children, both boys, aged 7 and 5 (only just). For about the last 6 years me and my ex-partner have been in and out of the court system and I have obtained several contact orders which eventually ended up as a residence order as the court felt that it would provide a greater emphasis on shared parenting as opposed to my ex-partner being able to do as she pleases and as repeatedly flout the contact orders.
Well, this new residence order worked for about 2 years and then about 12 months ago my eldest started to be manipulated out of coming to my house on the premiss that his mum was going to be doing lots of fun things on my weekends and if he went he would miss them, so I had no real choice, I started to give in when he would say "please, please, please dad - it's only this week and I promise I will come next week" - over time it became a lot more frequent with my ex-partner stooping to even lower levels to keep him there.
It got to the point where I decided I would need to try enforce the order, but unfortunately I am a single dad, and although I'm both self-employed and work causally for a set couple of companies around the days that I have the children - I was unable to afford the legal fees and needed to apply for legal aid. Because of my employment status and the fact that I was not on any state benefit (apart from housing benefit which was calculated every month based on my income) it turned out to be a complete nightmare, eventually resulting in them miscalculating it to the point where I was apparently receiving full housing benefit and also keeping all of my income - when in reality, the government states that an individual only requires £76 to live on per week - if I earned more than this it was always taken off of me at a rate of 85%.
Anyway, after a lot of letter writing and arguing they decided my original application had expired and I had to re-apply, which I did and this time they said that it was a case of me having to attend mediation (which is almost impossible as I live 60 miles away from my ex-partner). As expected she has messed that around right from the get go, never once turning up to a single session, using varying excuses with the last one being that she will do any day apart from the only day that I am in her county to pick the kids up - a Friday. Ultimately, mediation decided that it was just getting silly and it wasn't going to go anywhere to they have issued an APP7 form which apparently is what I need to take the matter back to court.
In the mean time, my solicitor of 4 years has changed practice to a firm that previously took on my ex-partner regarding a completely unrelated matter that did not relate to neither me or my children (more than another access case to do with one of her other children) and based on this my solicitor can no longer represent me do to a conflicting duty of interest on behalf of the firm.
Also, my ex-partner is now strangely (or maybe not so strangely for her) visiting abuse charities with the intention using this to either justify her cessation of contact and/or help her to obtain legal aid after the changes that will be occurring on April 1st. Either way, there has never been any allegation or report ever made against me and it is extremely distressing that she is dragging my children along to these places to in her words 'seek help and support for them' - any advice about that would also be much appreciated too!
So, here I am, with just two short months left until they pull the plug on legal aid for family matters trying to hurry this back into court whilst at the same time trying to simultaneously organise my legal aid and a solicitor so that they will hopefully tie up and I do not have to wait on one for the other.
So far I have been told that I need to obtain a C100 and also a EX160. Are these the correct forms for enforcing the order? Also, what if I am wish to seek a full residence order, the same forms again?
Many thanks for any help I receive, if you need any more information about my situation then please just ask.
Nathan.
i'm not sure on what you're asking about but i know to enforce a contact order its the C79 you need
http://www.wikivorce.com/divorce/Divorce-Advice/Child-Court-Hearings/134911-C79-Enforcement-of-a-Contact-Order.html
Yes, that is pretty much what I wanted to know - so it would be a C79 and also an EX160.
Any advice with regards to going through the process of enforcing and order given the circumstances?
If you do a quick search in the legal section there are a few posts on Enforcing Contact Orders.
the key for me is to keep records of everything you do and say, keep messages, text, emails, letters all as proof of any abuse you may have been subjected to.
If you have proof that shows you not to be abusive, or harassing then keep that for when you submit your statements and evidence to the courts/or via your solicitor.
check that your residence order has a warning attachment to it, without a warning attachment you'll not get the enforcement order. so check and make sure you get the warning notice on.
have you tried contacting the courts to explaine that she is breaking the order? i would try dropping the courts an email explaining the situtation they will morethan likely send you out the forms.
take a look at the advice from Yoji on representing yourself, could be worth a try if you fail to get the legal aid or solicitor in time.
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