How do i give my parents legal rights to my children when im still alive? and other q's please

[mumandlovingit]

hi
ive been wondering lately about making sure that my children are looked after incase the worst ever happens and i die or have an acident or me and my partner have a car crash or something and the children are left with no parent to look after them.

i spoke to a a friend who said that grandparents dont automatically get the children and ive put it into my will now that they will be guardians of the children if my partner is deceased, unable or unwilling to look after them properly.

i just wonder if anyone knows of any way of giving my parent srights, like parental responsibility to them whilst we're all well so that if we ever ended up in hospital for weeks or had a serious accident and couldnt look after them anymore, my parents would automatically have rights to the children and be able to take over in looking after them.

ive looked on the internet and found out alot about making them gusrdians if i die or them having the children living there permanently now but that isnt what we want it for.it would be if there was any reason why we couldnt be able to look after them properly illness etc.

i want to make sure that the children would go to the people who deserve to look after them and who i know will look after them well.i dont want them going to other members of the family or strangers god forbid.

anyone any ideas or experience? im hoping that i could get a solicitor to write something up for me to sign on legal aid or something just so its legal so its one less thing for us to worry about.

But surely if you were only in hospital for weeks, your children would go to whoever is their guardians, wether that's your dh or parents it shouldn't really matter. I know when I was in hospital for a month it was my mum & my dh who took care of dd.

i was just wondering whether there was something that would give my parents legal rights over the children apart from a will.

my friend had a bad bike accident and is n addenbrookes and wont be home for at least 6 months, he's not responding well etc and i want to make sure that if ever something like that happens to me and my partner that my parents wont have the worry of having to fight to keep the children.

i just want to mke sure that if other family members or anyone decide to try to have the kids in that situation, that it is my parents that will get to look after them.

all the things ive read about over the internet are for if the children are already living with the grandparents or if the parents have died, not for situations like this.

any help would be appreciated.

Nothing that I'm aware of, apart from a residence order, which will automatically confer parental responsiblity. A residence order can only be granted by the Court and wouldn't be done on a 'just in case' basis. If the need arose, your parents could apply for it. But if you're in hospital and have arranged with your parents to look after the children, then the issue of strangers really wouldn't arise - unless your parents turned out to be unwilling/unable to do so, and there were no other family members willing/able to.

Nothing that I'm aware of, apart from a residence order, which will automatically confer parental responsiblity to somebody other than a parent I should have said!

thankyou.

i might visit a solicitor and see if they can draught me up a letter just stating that in those circumstances, the children would go to my parents to be looked after.

thankyou i will look into it

A parental responsiblity agreement is something that the mother and father can enter into, which is rubber-stamped by a court clerk, to give father pr if he doesn't already have it. But this only applies to the father (well, to an actual parent of the child, but for obvious reasons, tht means the father - mothers automatically have pr). For everybody else, they need a residence order or a special guardianship order, which will automatically confer parental responsibility. These can only be granted by the Court.

A parental responsiblity agreement is something that the mother and father can enter into, which is rubber-stamped by a court clerk, to give father pr if he doesn't already have it. But this only applies to the father (well, to an actual parent of the child, but for obvious reasons, tht means the father - mothers automatically have pr). For everybody else, they need a residence order or a special guardianship order, which will automatically confer parental responsibility. These can only be granted by the Court.

What CR said is right. My will and a letter of wishes with it set out who is in charge of what if I die in particular the care of the children. I was told by my lawyer their father who has very little to do with them should be the default person but if he isn't alive then it's the people I have said. It would be an interesting situation as to the care of the younger ones.

Most people just have in their will who the guardians will be. I suspect whoever you specify if that person is wrongly chosen then after your deaht it could be change - e.g. if another family member can show they are know harmers of children etc so it will not be cast in stone in any event. I was in touch with a widow last year whose dying wife left her money in trust for the children's school fees, not her husband with her family as trustees who were then trying to get him to give them the children but he rightly was able to keep them, found a nanny, continued his work etc so there are these types of difficult situations around. The family were trying to say you're a man and you work so you can't have your own children. Stupid argument given how many single mothers work full time.

You can draft a letter saying that if you are navailable your parents can be considered in loco parentis -- i.e. that you have delegated to them the child's particular care and/or particular rights or duties. Any such arrangement can be changed or revoked at any time. Is that what you are thinking of?

You really don't need to go to a solicitor for that, though -- just give your parents a signed and dated letter stating that if you are unavailable for any reason then you wish them to act in loco parentis and make any necessary decisions relating to the care of your children [names], including but not limited to giving consent for any dental, medical or surgical treatment, including anaesthetic and blood transfusions.