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Divorce Guide |
Contact OrdersIf you are getting divorced or separated from your partner and have children you can apply for various permissions regarding custody, care, and contact of the child. Contact Order is one such order. When a marriage is breaking down there are a number of issues arising with regard to children. Who will the child stay with, can the nonresidential parent meet the child, how often and till when, will he or she pay the maintenance and how much, who acquires the parental responsibility, and other similar issues. Each matter related to children has to be approved by the court and legally binding. Even if the couple enters a mutual agreement with respect to the child, the agreement must be sanctioned by the court. The purpose of this is to ensure that the child is being dealt in a fair way and getting all that is required. A Contact Order in UK is made under section 8 of The Children Act of 1989. The order entails as to who all can make contact with the child, frequency and schedule of the contact, and how long the contact will be for. Once the decision has been taken regarding the Residence of the child, that is with the child is going to live, the next step is to decide the contact related issues. How and when the child will be in contact with the nonresident parent is decided under this order. The time a nonresident parent makes with the child is known as the Contact. Contact between the child and the nonresident parent can either be direct – face to face, or indirect – through phone or other medium. Contact Orders are not restricted to parents; they can also be issued to grandparents, and other guardians, depending on the case. Contact is considered the right of the child and thus unmarried parents can also apply for Contact Orders. Some Contact Orders are very specific and entail the specific time and date of contact, place of contact, who will pick up and drop the child for meeting, and so on. The court can order a supervised contact or a staying contact. In “Supervised Contact” the other parent has to be present at the time of contact. This is common when the child is very small and needs the mother. Under “Staying Contact” the child is old enough and can stay overnight or more with the nonresident parent or guardian. A Contact Order continues till the child is 16 years old. Only in exceptional cases the Order extends beyond that. Parents must remember that Contact Orders are different from Parental Responsibility. A person having Contact Order does have the right to take the child to a foreign land, do some medical procedure, or change the surname of the child, without the permission of the resident parent. This Order is only for spending time with the child in a normal manner. One should also know that a Contact Order need not be approved by the court. The contact can be denied if the court feels that there is threat to child’s life or any other harm from the other parent.
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Divorce in Europe
Divorce and Children Divorce in AustraliaDivorce Guide
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