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Hi All,
I've been advised to get a residency order for my Daughter who lives with me, but I'm unsure what a residency order is exactly, could anyone please help? I have a few questions regarding this:
1. If I was to get a residency order do you think I need a contact agreement attached?
2. If I applied for the order would this go to Court, if so would I and her mother both have to be present?
3. If I did get a residence order would this completely stop my daughter from sleeping at her mums house?
If anybody has a residency order in place for their children would you recommend it? Does it really help?
Thank you in advance
Rich
Hi Rich,
I'll ask the CCLC to drop by and advise for you as I don't have any experience myself.
Darren
Hi Rich
I have a residence order for my daughters - it basically gives your children the security of knowing where they are going to be living, and gives you more control of what happens to the children, allows you to take them abroad for up to a month without having to seek consent (and prevents your ex from doing so without consent unless there are provisions in the contact order to allow this), plus it makes it much easier in respect of claiming child benefit, maintenance etc. A contact order is likely to be sensible, whether it can be done at the same time depends on whether you can come to any agreement with respect to contact beforehand and whether the judge deems that agreement to be reasonable. You both would almost certainly be expected to attend, or a legal representative on your/her behalf - reaslistically, I think it's something you should both attend in person anyway.
Preventing or allowing overnight contact is somethig that would be sorted out in the contact order - a court would normally allow this if requested unless there are welfare or safeguarding issues (my ex is an alcoholic so she never got anything other than supervised and later supported contact).
Is there any further information you could provide to give us more pointers to the way we think it could go?
Dear Rich 123
Thank you for your post.
In answer to your questions:
A Residence Order states where the child should reside and with who.
1) A Contact Agreement can be made if it is considered necessary. The non-resident parent can ask that Contact provisions be made alongside the Residence Order. A Judge would then make a Contact Order based on the welfare of the children.
2) A Residence Order can only be made at the Courts. Both yourself and the mother would need to be present at the hearing for this application. To apply for a Residence Order you would need to complete a form entitled C100 which can be obtained from your local Family Proceedings Court or from www.justice.gov.uk. There is a fee of £200 for this application. Once you have completed this form you need to hand it back in to the Family Proceedings Court closest to where the child resides and await a hearing.
3) In terms of the child staying overnight at the mothers, this would be dependent on any restrictions the Judge puts in place for contact. If there are no restrictions and if there isn't a Contact Order made, then it is hoped that you and the mother can come to an amicable agreement.
Should you require any further legal advice please do not hesitate to contact us via our webchat facility which can be found at www.childrenslegalcentre.com and is available Monday to Friday 9am to 6pm.
Yours sincerely
CORAM CHILDREN'S LEGAL CENTRE
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