[Solved] Separated Dad looking for guidance on residency

Hey and welcome to the forum 🙂

Unfortunately this happens quite often if you have no court order in place with a set arrangement on the co-parenting of your child and the resident parent usually the Mum can call all the shots and do what they want.

If you're on the birth certificate that just means you have "parental responsibility" if you're not you have to apply for parental responsibility through the courts which in it's self is pretty straight forward.

If you want to come to an arrangement for the amount of time you spend with your child you have to apply through the family court for a "child arrangement order"

Having parental responsibility doesn't automatically give you rights to see your child it just means you have the right to make decisions about the childs schooling, Medical and general decisions in the childs up bringing.

It does seem like your ex isn't willing to play ball as she is saying do everything through a solicitor.

It seems to me that you are going to have to apply for a child arrangements order through the family court.

So to do this first off Mediation has to be attempted so find a local mediators approach them and they will ask the ex down for a meeting to see if you can come to an agreement to co-parent your child.

If she doesn't turn up or it fails you can get the application form for a CAO which is a c100 form signed off by the mediator then you can apply to the courts.

You don't need a solicitor you can self represent and the application will cost you £215.

So in a nutshell you need to get the ball rolling with mediation.

Hope this helps

Slim 🙂

Hi mate thanks for the reply. I've posted a letter i sent a few weeks ago. Since then i have the wee guy on a Wednesday night at mine but there's no movement on weekends. What do you think of my chances?

I'm writing this to you as I think that it is important that you know exactly where I am coming from in relation to how we split our time with K, as I think the way we have both communicated so far has not been productive.

The messages that have been going back and forth between us have only appeared to make us both confused and emotional, and if we are to reach an amicable resolution to all of this they cannot continue.

What I am looking for coming out of the other end of this is suitable residency and access schedule that is helpful to K's wellbeing and our own.

The only way that that is possible is if we both have Kian's wellbeing as our only motivating factor.

Firstly, we are still mostly operating on agreements that were made quite hastily when we first split up.

At the time I agreed to things that I wouldn't have if I had thought about them properly.
Agreeing to these things, such as, inflated maintenance payments; only having K at the weekends and having him every weekend have proven to be impractical.

Committing to giving you almost a quarter of my salary, whilst still having to feed K four nights a week and provide food and activities for him during the weekends, as well as the cost of living for myself and paying debt (some of which was accrued and spent on the flat which I lived in and contributed the majority of the household income, including mortgage payments, for as long as you have held the mortgage on) puts too much strain on me financially.

I will pay whatever maintenance costs are advised by the CSA. I will always support my son and always make sure he has what he needs whenever he is with me.

In terms of residency/access, I have always maintained that I would like for K to stay with me more than one night a week, but I feel that you have tried to ignore this. When it was first raised, we agreed that we would wait until the summer holidays and then it was delayed again until he started school. I have not pushed this as much as I should have but I will continue to do so in the future until we reach a resolution.

The main reasons for this is that I think it would be more settled for K than the current arrangement, where I have to pick him up after work, get him settled at my house, feed him, then bring him back to you to get him settled for bed.
I also want to be much more involved in his daily routine in terms of schooling. As he gets older and is communicating better I want to be able to help him with homework, ask him how his day was etc. At the moment I feel isolated from this.
Ideally for me, an arrangement where he stayed two weeknights a week and we rotate the current weekend arrangements that are in place for me just now, would be of great benefit to K as he would have a balanced parenting input during his school week and weekends.

This would aslo mean that on my weekends off, K and I wouldn't be spending such a long time apart.

Whatever we come to agree upon, it is essential that we sit down and go over the calendar to agree dates so that we both know where we are at ahead of time and can make plans around this.

These are all things we have to discuss in person, and it is essential we sit down and find solutions.

In terms of introducing K to my new girlfriend, I must admit that I should have handled that better and informed you of any meetings , even if some of them were not planned. Apart from that, I am assured that I am acting with K's best interests as a primary consideration in all of my actions. I have discussed, at length, with gf , the difficultie (autism) s that K has and that his wellbeing must be managed very carefully and I am sure we are very sensitive and objective in our actions and as a result, I am confident that K is adapting very capably and very confidently to the situation. Gf and I have discussed that if you would like Kindred( or any other organisation) to asess our interactions and/or environment in relation to K then we would be happy to oblige. I am understanding that you have concerns in terms of K's behaviour but I think it would be complacent to attribute these to the current situation.

On that note I feel our communication in terms of K's behaviour and planned development must improve if his development is to progress to its fullest.
This has been an issue for us a long as we have been parents in my opinion. I feel it is important that his actions, behaviour, activities, diet and therapies be recorded daily as well as research and information influencing parenting styles, so that we as parents have the relevant information required to make decisions and that also a record of all of these are kept. It is something that should have been kept for a long time, in hindsight, irregardless of our personal situation.

I am very concerned that the way we are communicating right now there is a possibility that the issues we are facing could be heading towards resolution from third parties, i.e courts. This is something that I am extremely eager to avoid as it will only take our time and energy away from our son.

I would appreciate if you could get back to me with a time and a date for a meeting, which I have been requesting for weeks now, in the next few days as we need resolution.

Also you need to free up a weekend in January where you have K

Sincerely

Unless you get a court order in place theres nothing to stop the ex chopping and changing as she pleases and messing you around for the rest of your life, my ex called all the shots and after finally letting me see my daughter 5 weeks after birth she would only let me see my girl for 2 hours a week under her supervision I disagreed then she stopped me seeing her for 10 months whilst I got the court order, now I pretty much have her 50/50 and we have arranged when I have her between us now that she has finally calmed down after 2 [censored] years.

I'm so pleased I went through the courts it was tough going but my ex can't mess me around no more and I can be a dad on my own terms without her interfering which is priceless 🙂

Hi

It sounds like a very thoughtful and considered letter. Slim's advice cover's it, really. But just to reiterate - if your Ex has suddenly asked for all correspondance to go through a solicitor (usually at the solicitors request...) then this *can* mean things might start to get difficult to you. Often an ex partner will "send a solicitor's letter" to get a reaction/intimidate you into giving in to, or not making, demands, etc. But don't be worried by this - you can happily write back without instructing a solicitor yourself - and your ex will begin to get tired of using the solicitor when their letters do not have the desired effect...especially if they are charging her for each one...

Mediation is the key first step - and to be honest - you can just call up a mediator and as long as you can provide contact details for your Ex, they will contact her. This tends to save on protracted communications back and forth. If she agrees to mediation then great, as often it is a really good way to resolve differences and to help both parents understand any impact on the child. But if she rejects it, you will have the C100 as Slim suggests.

You can find a mediator via this: http://www.nfm.org.uk/

At this stage - I would resist the temptation to instruct a solicitor to engage in lucrative letter-writing between themselves - at least until you know what is going on with mediation. I would also advise that you do not go to a solicitor for mediation as they are generally much more expensive compared to a mediator specialist (this will be what her solicitor suggests, and it will probably be one of the solicitors' mates whom they receive referral kick-backs from...call me cynical...).
Mediators are not supposed to give legal advice - and should not take sides - so pointless to pay solicitor rates, really. This is another reason for picking the mediator yourself, and then getting them to contact your ex.

It sounds like your ex would be financially worse off with a CMS arrangement - and this may give you some bargaining power (which you could raise in mediation). It doesn't sound like the contact arrangements you are seeking are unreasonable at all.

good luck

As above - mediation is mandatory before progressing to court. If your ex wants all correspondence to go through her solicitor, then that's to her cost - every letter will be charged at least 15 minutes, and if a response is need to go to you or her, then probably another 30 minutes - her costs are soon going to mount.

Thanks again folks. It really is appreciated.