Primary carer/custody question. Can anyone help?

[wellhellobeautiful]

DP and his ex share care of their DD 50:50. It's all very civil and amicable.

But DP's ex often asks DP to look after DSD on her contact nights. We end uphaving DSD more than 50% of the time. In fact, when DP and I sat down with last year's calendar and looked at how many nights we'd had DSD vs how many nights his ex had had DSD, our nights significantly outnumbered hers.

So DP wants to formalise himself as the primary carer. Because, technically he is. But whenever he's brought it up with his ex she says she wants to keep things the way they are - supposedly 50:50.

Can anyone advise what his options are legally?

If it's civil and amicable why upset the apple cart?

"Primary carer" or "main carer" has no legal status. It's just a term to identify the parent with whom the children spend more time with. When both parents have Parental Responsibility they have equal responsibilities and rights to carry out the responsibilities. A residence order determines where children live and can be in favour of one parent or shared but there is a no order principle which means the courts shouldn't make an order unless it is necessary and in the interests of a child. These days the outcome of many applications for residence is shared residence which is usually in different proportions from 50:50.

That's really useful. Thank you.

One more question if anyone can help: DP's really worried that his ex is going to move away with her new boyfriend - where does he stand if she wants to do that?

At the moment we only live five minutes away from DP's ex so school runs, hand overs, etc is very easy.

What could he do if, for example, she wanted to move an hour away and change DSD's school? Could he stop that happening because he's had DSD for more than 50% of the time for the past year? Would a court always favour what the mother wants to do?

Ah.. that's a bit different. If the mother moves away there would need to be agreement about where the children live and go to school. When no agreement can be reached it's open to either party to apply to court for a judicial decision.
A judge would then consider the views of the children according to their age of maturity, the background and the effects of any change. When the reality is care is shared 50:50 or almost 50:50 a court may well decide it's less disruptive to education and established relationships with friends and extended family for children to live with the parent who isn't moving.

If your partner is concerned a move is imminent he should really find out from a family solicitor where he stands and what options there are.