residency orders/adoption advice needed please

[divastrop]

hi.i wondered if anybody could help?my ds2 is 3.3 and his biological father has made no attempt to contact him since we split up nearly 3 years ago.we were married when i had ds2(now divorced)so he has parental responsibility.i am not happy about this,as my xh was violent and abusive towards me and threatened my 2 older children on occasion.basically,he is not somebody i would want within 5 miles of my children.
my dp would like to adopt ds2,but i dont know if this would be possible.dp and i hve dd2 together and we are expecting another in march.we are planning to get married but its going to be in a few years when we can afford it.
i have read about residency orders and adoption but some sites say you can only get them if you are married ,others say u can if you have been living together for more than 6 months.
i would like to know if there is anything i can do because if,god forbid,anything were to happen to me,i am terrified of the thought my xh may in some way be involved in ds2's life.he sees my dp as his dad and dp sees him as his own son and i want him to have legal rights.
can anyone offer any advice?

Bump for you cause I don't know the answer but one of the later crowd might

thank you mummyscary

I'm pretty sure that the law has changed recently so that unmarried couples can adopt. I'm not exactly sure but I think that your xh has to either give his permission or you would have to go through the courts for parental responsability to be removed from him. It used to be that you would have to adopt as well as your dp even though they are your birth children, but I think that that may have changed now as well.

Have you had a look at the adoption UK website ?

You could also try the British Association of Adoption and Fostering, baaf , although they don't seem to have much information about adopting a step-child.

There's also a govt website which has details of the procedure .

Best of luck.

thank you bran.i had a look at those links but couldnt find much that i havent already read on other sites.i think i am just going to have to go and see a solicitor and find out what can be done.
i know they would need permission from xh officially but i dont know if there would be any way round that if he cant be traced.

sorry dont know about the adoption but i got my mother named on my will as gaining guardianship to my boys if anything happens to me,might be worth doing

I think it's unlikely your partner could adopt, unfortunately. There was a bit of a fashion in the 80s for step parent adoption, but it's now fallen out of favour as the courts usually feel that no matter how crap the father is, the child has a right to know its natural father, paternal relations etc and even changing the name is now frowned upon by some judges.
It would probably be better for your partner to apply for a parental responsibility order. He can do this through the County Court under the Children Act 1989 using form C1 or C2 (downloadable from the court website www.courtservice.gov.org). The father has to be served with the application but even if he objects I think the court are more than likely to give your partner PR in these circumstances. By doing so, the tie (such as it is) between your child and his dad isn't severed permanently as would be the case with adoption, but you and your partner would have the peace of mind that, for example, if the child had an accident when in your partner's care, he couldl give consent to medical treatment etc.
As a belt and braces measure, you should name your partner as guardian in your will. This does not override the rights of the natural father, but in the event of a disagreement if you died, would bear a lot of weight in any residence application by natural dad.
If you need a lawyer, check out the family law specialist website www.resolution.org.
Good luck.

thank you,mumbles.i know when i tried to change ds2's name to mine when i got divorced the solicitor said it would be very difficult and now the courts will only support such things in extreme cases.
is that what a residency order is,then,when the step-parent gets parental responsibility for the child without it being removed from the natural parent?
my mother is already named testimentary guardian on my will but i am going to change it to include my dp after i have been to see a solicitor to find out the best course of action re the other stuff.

Hi, Diva. No, a residence order states with whom the child lives, and the parent with residence has rights which are different to parental responsibility.
Parental responsibility is a bundle of rights and responsibilities which can be granted to natural parents and other people (eg partners, grandparents) with whom the child does not necessarily live. In your circumstances, because you were married to the father, he automatically has PR, as do you, and your partner can acquire PR through the court order. All 3 of you, therefore are supposed, in theory, to agree things like education, medical treatment, religious upbringing etc.
If you can't trace the natural dad, by the way, you may still be successful in your appln for PR to your partner if you can prove that you have done everything reasonably possible to trace him, as you aren't taking any rights away from him, but giving your child another adult with PR. Hope this all makes sense.

yes it makes sense,thank you very much for your help.