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Hi there everybody how you all doing
I have an issue that i hope you can help me with.
I have a daughter who is 6 years old and lives 50 miles from me with her mother. me and the ex split up about three years ago
i have P.R . Now the issue is my ex wants to change our daughters surname to hers or a combination of both she did ask permission and i said no i wasn't happy with it for the simple fact i didn't see any valid reason to change it my girls six now and feel it would be very confusing for her changing her name at this stage in her life. But my ex being like she is has changed her name at school and says she is going to go ahead with court proceedings to get her name changed officially .
My question is can my ex change my daughters name at school without my consent and what will happen with court if she goes ahead because my fears are she will go ahead with this and not tell me resulting on a legal name change without my knowledge
Hope you can help . thx
She can't legally change her name without your consent, Have you wrote to the school to confirm she is being known as another surname.
I haven't but when I picked her up from school last her school bags had a different surname on them. I didn't say anything cos I didn't want take a scene in front of my daughter
Whilst your ex can't change your daughters surname without your consent, schools do include on application forms the option to declare the name by which the child should be known. This would be recorded alongside the child's full legal name, which also needs be declared. Essentially this allows a child to choose how they wish to be known, within reason, without a full legal name change.
My understanding of requesting a legal name change is that courts are loathed to sanction a change if disputed, unless there is specific justification for doing so. As it was explained to me 'on the whim of the mother, wouldn't constitute sufficient justification'.
This is a few years old now (from my residence order), but I suspect it hasn't changed--
Where a residence order is in force, no person may cause the children to be known by a new surname ...... without the written consent of every person with parental responsibility for the children or the leave of court.
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