Ex won’t return kids passports

[Jesslouisep]

After some advice really,
I have full custody of my kids, there’s no court order in place and have always arranged kids seeing their dad just between the 2 of us. It’s taken some doing but we made it work eventually for the most part.
recently he took them to Disneyland Paris which I consented to and handed over the passports. Now they’re home he’s sent all their clothes back but withheld the passports. He’s saying I can have 1 but not the other; is there anything I can do about this? I want to book a holiday but don’t feel confident doing this until he’s given them to me as he can be very spiteful and I can see him not handing over the passport at all and then our whole holiday having to be abandoned. He was controlling our entire relationship and now I’m finally free I feel like he’s still controlling me.

I'd take a different tactic and play nice and get one passport back because I bet he's not smart enough that he's made a note of the Passport numbers. It also ensures he won't take the children overseas on one of his contact visits because he's only holding one of the passports.

then I would speak to his parents. If that brings no joy I would seek a court order.

You don't have full custody of your kids currently though- there is nothing official so whilst they have been residing with you up utilising now, there is nothing legally to say they need to continue to do so- I would be more concerned about that first than anything else. If you cancel the passports, do you need his signature to re apply for them? Because I assume if you called his bluff this way then he probably wouldn't sign to allow the replacement?