Question on shared parental leave

[Lagirl20]

My husband and I want to make use of shared parental leave.

I will take the first 9 months off, he will take the last 3 months off, all agreed by both employers.

my understanding is that my maternity leave ends once my husband takes over. However can I choose to take the full year regardless, with no pay whatsoever for the last three months?

I think you would have to negotiate a period of unpaid leave with your employer. If you are stopping maternity leave and your partner is having the last 3 months I would say no not automatically. It is really complicated can your HR department advise?

@Lagirl20 you essentially curtail your right to continue with maternity leave. So you would need to request some time - you would have accrued holiday from your maternity leave you could use. Alternatively. You can both take time off together as part of SPL

@Lagirl20 Once your maternity period ends, when your husband is taking his parental leave, you would need to negotiate with your employer. You can take annual leave for a block (which in my experience employers are quite happy for you to use up all your accrued annual leave in a big block) but given you're wanting 3 months off you'd also be looking at a period of unpaid leave. Some employers would be more/less accommodating about this, so you'd really need a conversation with your line manager / HR

Your maternity leave would end so you'd need to use some other type of leave if you wanted to stay off work.

What shared paternity leave policy does his employer have as you only have 37 weeks worth of pay to share and his employer can offset his pay against any maternity pay you received? This means his time off could be unpaid as its the unpaid part of statutory maternity leave.

Only if one of you is on unpaid leave during that time, you can only share 52 weeks of maternity leave between you.

You will have accrued annual leave during your May leave so you could come off mat leave at 9 months, give him 3 months of spl and use your annual leave while he is off to have time together instead.

As pp, you have 12 months between you so 9 months you, 3 months him in this scenario.