Father who lives abroad has applied for joint custody

[Custodyapplication]

DC is 4 and has never lived with his father as he moved back to his home country before DC was born and only had a few visits with father. Had no contact for the majority of the 4 years and none for 2+ years. Just received a letter that was addressed to my previous address which is another language but tried to interpret it and it says he’s applied for joint custody and there’s a court appointment next month in his home country which I’m supposed to attend. Child is disabled (father not aware of this) and there’s no way I’ll be able to take them to another country or get a babysitter to go and I have no idea who to contact/can’t speak the language. What will likely happen from this? Father has had no interest and was abusive/ controlling and seemed to be very jealous of DC, so I’m very worried about if child will have to spend time with him. This has come after an CMS application was done 3 and half years ago through REMO (intentional one) and has recently had an update on to say it’s progressing in his country so I assume that’s why he’s suddenly applied for joint custody.

Just wondered if you had to supply your current address in UK for the international CMS claim.

If the OP had had to do that, wouldn’t the French letter have gone to that address, rather than her old one?

I think so, hence my question! Unless the process was started before moving from the former address, but I'd imagine the new address would have to be updated on the international CMS system. Just wondering about it.

Application was started 3.5ish years ago. It wasn’t something I even remembered about until a recent update on it.

Oh OP, you have enough concerns, it wasn't my intention to add to them! I was just curious about addresses, and thanks anyway for taking the time to explain.

In france, you can’t write a will and exclude your children or one of your children.

Just from that, I’m going to say you need to take anything he says with a pinch of salt. He’ll tell you what hed like to happen rather than what is possible.

And yes France does register the deaths. It’s on the same document than the birth certificate. You just need to ask for a copy at the town the person was born. It’s all online and very easy tbh.

"In France, you can’t write a will and exclude your children or one of your children."

This is absolutely true, so either he wants to acknowledge his son by you and have joint custody with you, presumably in order not to have to pay you maintenance, or he wants your son not to inherit anything from him, which means he can’t admit he’s your son’s father and therefore has no rights (this would mean you would not receive support of any kind from him for your son). But he can’t have it both ways: either he is the father and therefore has to take financial responsibility for his son in all ways, including for inheritance purposes, or he is not your son’s father, in which case he has no reason to have the joint custody that he is asking for and which from what I understand from people here, he is unlikely to get at all, though he may have to pay a fair share of maintenance to you for his child. He’s trying to play you, taking advantage of the fact you don’t speak French and don’t know French inheritance laws.