DISPUTES ABOUT YOUR CHILDREN
Our solicitors at Eddowes Perry & Osbourne are on-hand to discuss your childcare, contact, residence and financial issues concerning your children.
CHILDREN DISPUTES
Whether, following a divorce or separation from your unmarried partner with whom you share children, if you find yourself needing legal advice relating to a child-related legal matter I can assist with pragmatic and straightforward advice starting with an initial face-to-face consultation without time constraints to ensure your questions are answered.
We can help with the following:
- Disputes relating to where a child should live;
- Disputes relating to how much time a child should spend with the other parent (or whether time should be shared equally);
- Disputes concerning safeguarding issues or serious parenting concerns of the other party;
- Grand-parental contact;
- Child abduction;
- Disputes relating to changing a child’s name or school;
- Moving areas or relocating abroad;
- Child maintenance issues;
- Other financial issues relating to children including on-going financial support for higher education, university, disability, special educational needs, sporting and/or high achievement;
COURT PROCEEDINGS RELATING TO YOUR CHILDREN
If after trying to resolve matters through dialogue, or in some cases correspondence or family-based mediation you are still unable to agree or in circumstances where your former partner issues his or her own legal proceedings you are almost certain to require assistance to guide you through a court-led process.
Eddowes, Perry, & Osbourne offer pragmatic cost-effective advice and support with the overriding objective to find compromise and agreement wherever possible. If that is not always possible we will fight as hard as the courts allow or the situation demands to secure your objectives. We have guided many clients to achieve positive outcomes relating to:
- Child Arrangement Orders (an order setting out where your children will live and what time they shall spend with the other parent)
- Prohibitive Steps Orders (preventing a parent from doing something in relation to a child, eg changing their school or moving abroad)
- Specific Issue Order (an order dealing with a discrete issue, e.g. whether a parent is permitted to take a child abroad to visit a relative or whether both parents should be forced to support a specific hobby such as gymnastics where the child demonstrates genuine ability).
Emergency measures
Sometimes it is necessary to act fast particularly where a parent believes there is a genuine risk of abduction by the other parent (including taking out of the country) or where the child may otherwise be in harm’s way.
An injunction is a court order requiring a person to do an act or to refrain from doing a particular act. In relation to children, an injunction can be sought to prevent domestic violence, for the personal protection of a parent, or to safeguard children.
Sometimes an injunction can be obtained the same or the next day thereby offering immediate protection. This is a specialist area and we (and you) need to act fast. If you need help to apply for an injunction order or if you are on the receiving end of an injunction application and do not know what to do then you will need urgent family law advice – please call urgently. Kindly note, we do not offer legal aid and all work is carried out on a private fee-paying basis only.
Childcare & Wills FAQs
A Will is a legal document that helps with the distribution of your assets after your death and can appoint guardians for minor children. A will is important to have, as it allows you to communicate your wishes clearly and precisely.
A will is important because it ensures that the right people inherit what you leave behind, your loved ones are looked after and that your wishes are fulfilled when you die.
If you die without a valid Will in place this dictates how your money, property and possessions can be distributed. This may result in your loved ones not inheriting from you your estate as you may have originally intended.
You can use your will to appoint guardians for your children to determine who will look after your child/children if they are under the age of 18 when you die.
The courts will be left to decide who takes care of your children. This will usually be a close relative, but it may not necessarily be the person you would choose.
When one parent dies, the surviving biological parent can look to obtain custody of the child.
It is important to note that the law is not biased towards certain genders. Therefore, if a mother of a child dies the biological father of a child can obtain custody.