parental rights

[pinkkoala]

we had our dd in dec 04, we were not married at the time and were told by the registrar that my partner didn't have as much rights to our dd as i did.

we are now married and have been given a form from the registrat who married us to fill in and this gives husband equal rights to dd.

Please could anyone who is in legal or anyone who knows about this please explain.

what does it mean if husband doesn't have equal rights, what can't he be allowed to decide on, what happens if we don't fill in the form, what would happen if we were to split up. Also does anybody know if when you get married you name automaticaaly changes or are you still known as your surname until you change it, i wasn't going to change my surname but not sure if it is done automatically.

can somebody please explain, i am totally confused.

Can't help with parental rights form, and what would happen if you split up will be down to negotiation between you, or the court if you can't agree. But you definitely do not have to change your name if you'd rather not.

WRT your DD its all about parental responsibility, the mother automatically has this but the father, if they weren't married to the mother at the time of birth, didn't have automatic parental responsibility. He does now if you are married and tbh, I thought he always did have if he was named as the father on the birth cert. It can affect things like giving consent, that has to be from someone with parental responibility.
When you get married your name is automatically changed unless you sign the register in your maiden name.If you do take your husbands name then places like banks, passport agency, doctors surgery, HR would need to see the certificate as proof, the same as if you cahnged your name by deed poll.

I'm sorry, but your name is not automatically changed! Unless things have changed dramatically in the last 25 years...

Your name is NOT automatically changed. OLKN is correct. YOU need to inform the relevant people if you WANT to change your name - otherwise it stays as it always was.

I assumed it was as I signed the register in my married name not my maiden name, my new name is on the electoral roll without me having actively informing anyone about it so why would my old name not be still on?

My dd was born March 04. They had recently changed the law, so if the father jointly registered the birth along with the mother, both parents had equal parental rights, despite not being married.

Did you register your dd's birth by yourself? If so, that might explain it. The new form is probably to rectify that situation - if that is of course what you want.

Basically parental rights are to do with things like giving permission for medical treatment, decisions on education etc. I've seen another thread recently where there was a link to a website detailing this.

Someone informed the electoral roll MJM - are you sure your husband didn't fill the forms in - they arrive every so often and if you don't fill them in, you are not on the roll - they don't go looking for you.

Your name does not automatically get changed when you get married. If you want to change it at that point you can start using a new name, and inform the relevant people, but if you want to carry on using your own name then you just do that.

OK sorry I stand corrected. I assumed that was the case because of the electoral roll thing.

i am even more confused now.

we registered the birth together, his name is on the birth cert.

does this mean at the mo i have more responsibilty than him, we have been told about medical consent and taking out of the country has to be decided by me, and education issues.

we have been told to complete the form, make another appointment with registrar and we can have dd birth cert changed, it is really confusing me.

as for name change i signed married register in my maiden name.

anybody with anymore advice.

Was he physically present though?

yes, we went together and took dd.

Then that is bizarre. I think the law changed at the end of 2003, so if you both attended the registry office to register the birth, then you should automatically have joint parental responsibility. I don't recall there being an "opt out" clause.

Link here to Gov Website

Who has parental responsibility?
In England and Wales, if the parents of a child are married to each other at the time of the birth, or if they have jointly adopted a child, then they both have parental responsibility. Parents do not lose parental responsibility if they divorce, and this applies to both the resident and the non-resident parent.

This is not automatically the case for unmarried parents. According to current law, a mother always has parental responsibility for her child. A father, however, has this responsibility only if he is married to the mother when the child is born or has acquired legal responsibility for his child through one of these three routes:

(from 1 December 2003) by jointly registering the birth of the child with the mother
by a parental responsibility agreement with the mother
by a parental responsibility order, made by a court
Living with the mother, even for a long time, does not give a father parental responsibility and if the parents are not married, parental responsibility does not always pass to the natural father if the mother dies.

All parents (including adoptive parents) have a legal duty to financially support their child, whether they have parental responsibility or not.

More from a Dad's website

if we registered her birth together according to the info we don't need to complete the form we were given when we got married am i right.

how come we have seen two different registrars one when we registered dd and one when we got married and i queried why they were giving us the form and they have both said that dh doesn't have parental responsibilty.

what would happen if we divorced, how would they know he has parental responsibilty, if we haven't changed her birth cert.

I think I would definitely check this out. The law says you should definitely have joint responsibility automatically. I can't understand why the registrars are saying otherwise.

If for some strange reason this hasn't happened I guess you should complete the form, and sort it out. The direct.gov website had the info on this. If you divorced, then your dh would not have automatic PR. This is not the same as maintenance etc though.

i have just looked at the links you provided this confirms what you are saying, so perhaps i will leave the form, anymore suggestions on name change when married.

This seems to cover the subject quite well

Portofino is right and I think the registrar is confused.
The law did change prior to the birth of your DD so that if the father attends to register the birth with you, he will automatically have PR and will have the same rights as you with regards to decisions such as your DD's education, upbringing, medical treatment, religion etc.
Even if he had not attended with you, he would attain PR when you subsequently married. There should therefore be no reason why you should have to complete any forms.
If you divorced, you would both still have PR, although one of you may decide to apply for Residence of your DD but hopefully it won't come to that.

With regards to your surname, other posters are correct. If you want to change your name to that of your DH, you need to do this yourself and will need to take your marriage certificate to the bank/building society or send off with your passport to get it changed.

HTH

your DH has & has always had PR

However you can reregister the birth so that your DD becomes a legitimate "child of your marriage" if you so wish.

We did that for our DD (born 05, we married in 06). See here

Betsy, when we got married no-one mentioned this as an option. And dd was there, so they were certainly aware of her. The website link implies that you "should" do this. But technically, dd was not a child of our marriage, because we weren't married. I guess that still makes her "illegitimate"?