Urgent advice needed, am I being crazy or is DP trying to f*** me over

[TravisRains]

Long time poster, changed names.

I am gonna keep this brief but try not to drip feed.

2 female partners - together 15 years

1 partner went through IUI to have a child. This was done as a single woman, other female not named on birth certificate. Reasons being, she did not meet criteria to be part of the fertility journey. very long boring story but ultimately it was her fault.

DS only has me on birth certificate. This comes to today. DS is 7 years old. Me and DP have split. No cheating, nothing like that, she just stopped giving any kind of attention/sex. We would argue all the time and I made the decision to end it.

I have the house. Now in receipt of Universal credit which tops up my full time wage a bit.

She is now sofa surfing at her brothers house and cant afford a mortgage. She is looking to get one with housing association.

However, she has very little points as despite having our DS 60/40 (I have majority) she has nothing linking her to being the other mother. She has asked about applying for parental responsibility or adoption for security as is terrified I will take him away (I wont).

Now she is asking me to transfer child benefit into her name so that the council can see she has some custody of a child and help her with her housing claim.

I don't want to do this but her family are pressuring me. I moved to a rural location with her years ago and have zero support network here.

What are the implications of putting the child benefit in her name to get her off my back. Or should I not? Could she then essentially take my UC claim away from me?

This is a messed up situation but please be kind. I am very fragile right now with a lot of stuff going on, bereavement etc and now this.

From what you have said your ex is only wanting cb so LA will house her. But that’s not a guarantee. Even with cb and LA agreeing to house she would likely be offered private rented, she could just do that. Or hostel with child - do you want that? Your child living in a hostel?

she can just find herself accommodation.

it seems there was no discussion at the end of your relationship as to where you both would live, managing childcare and contact etc.

do not give over cb, its for you as resident parent to provide for child.

she is an adult and needs to sort herself out. Her family could help her instead of hassling you!

you also have been given advice about long term future, holidays, schools, medical intervention.

do you both do any discussions or planning about this?

I think you need legal advice to consider PR and what that may stop you doing in future. @prh47bridge who has posted on here is a lawyer and had been very helpful to me in the past <doffs cap>

There is a quote from my favourite book “Don’t do what you can’t undo, until you’ve considered what you can’t do once you’ve done it.” Wise words indeed.

Do you want to move to where you have more support? Could your ex also move to that location to be close to their child because that is how she views your son. She has raised him with you since birth.

Has your ex ever wanted to go down the PR route before the split? I think the main thing to consider is that if anything happened to you where would you want your child to end up?

I would not give her the CB though. You are the primary carer, you are rightfully registered for CB.

From the things OP has told us, it is clear that her ex is not legally the child's parent regardless of whether the child identifies her as such.

For her ex to be the parent, she needs to have been married to or in a civil partnership with OP, or treated jointly with OP as a couple by a clinic licensed through the HFEA. As neither of those things were true, she is not the parent and cannot get PR unless OP marries her or enters into a civil partnership with her.

Leaving aside emotional factors, how is this situation materially different from the following hypothetical situation:- A woman who is pregnant with no father on the scene (for any number of reasons such as anonymous one night stand, sperm donor, bereavement etc). You enter a relationship with another man around the time of your child’s birth and this man helps you raise your child but has no legal parental rights. You split up when your child is 7 and he asks you to give him legal parental rights over your child so he can get social welfare/housing. There is no way in hell most women would do this. I don’t consider your current circumstances to be much different from that scenario. Don’t do it. If she wants to maintain a relationship with your child going forward she doesn’t need any legal rights in order to do so.

No no no

This is your child, and your child only.

right now it may be 60/40 but it might not be in one years time / five years time / 10 years time.

you will both have moved on.

There were 7 years for her to have made legal / financial decisions, she didn't.

I don’t understand why she is not on the birth certificate. Even if not at the time, I’m 7 years she hasn’t got round to doing it and now it’s a priority for her?

no, I wouldn’t do it, let her figure out this one. Why can’t she go on the birth certificate now if that would help her with housing without messing up your UC?

Besides the point surely?

So no interest in adoption or being given parental responsibility until she wants a house?
Nope!

She has asked about applying for parental responsibility or adoption for security as is terrified I will take him away (I wont).

So you are not denying her as being a parent figure to the child but you don’t want her to claim child benefits so that they can go towards actually caring for the child

You have received excellent advice here, OP. I agree with the very sound legal advice upthread . Do not give her PR or the CB.

I just want to add that your child is not a profit stream and you didn’t go to the trouble of conceiving him and birthing him and raising him for the child benefit. She seems to be intent on using the relationship—informal though it is—to get something, a material benefit. That is treating him like a financial asset and not like her son.

The CB is going towards caring for the child, op gets it, and has her child majority of the time.

Listen to @prh47bridge OP.
Do not sign over CB, that’s an outrageous request from your ex.

Why didn’t she adopt him? She isn’t wrong. She deserves to have parental responsibility. If you die, what happens? Have you sorted that so she gets him? And what happens if he is with her and there is a medical emergency; she won’t be allowed to make decisions for her own child. She is his parent and deserves that recognition.

That is totally separate from benefits. You are the primary carer so you keep the child benefit. To get it from you once she has parental responsibility, she would need to prove that she was the primary carer and she can’t so you’re safe. If you give her the CB claim then you will lose the child element of your UC and your claim becomes a single adult claim. Do not give her the CB.

£26.05 according to Google is child benefit right now.

£26.05 is the whole point of this thread ?

£26.05 for a child you grew for 9 months or so, gave birth to.

£26.05

so she can get social housing...

1000000% do not transfer the CB

I wouldn't.

Do not do this.

You are your child’s biological mother.

You provide your child with housing and you have him the majority of the time.

Your ex needs to stand on her own two feet. She can still have contact with your child if you permit it - but you are your child’s biological and legal parent.

Do not - under any circumstances facilitate an adoption with this person.

Which book is that? It’s a beautiful saying. I have a tendency to react to things in the moment and this is very good advice.

She might be able to get child support if the OP allows an adoption with shared residency. Or if she signs adoption paperwork without realising the consequences she could be signing away her child. It’s not worth taking any action to facilitate her ex using her child just to get a house to live in.

Ignore her. Obviously biologically you could both have your son, but if she were a concerned parent she would have taken steps to be his legal parent as soon as she could after his birth. Anything could have happened. Your could have died when he was a baby. Also if she's so bothered why isn't she having him 50% of the time now?

Were you married or civil partners at the time of the fertility treatment? If yes then the registrar was wrong.

I agree with the above, she is just an ex partner not a parent and it’s likely the relationship between the ex and the child will fizzle out when the ex finds a new partner

All her suggestions are for her benefit and are not in the best interests of your child. Your child needs the stability of his biological mother being his recognised primary carer. I’m afraid that she will have to do what everyone else does: pull up her socks, work hard and pay to rent privately.

That may effect qualifying for medical procedures like IUI or IVF but absoloutly nothing to do with non child baring parental rights. Only one of you could birth the baby so only one of you needed to meet criteria to go through the physical requirements.

But not all the time