Child arrangements order

[lifeofasinglewoman]

Hi,

So me and my ex partner have come to an agreement when it comes to our child’s contact arrangements, he has said he wants to have our child’s Friday to Sunday every other weekend, I have asked him about half terms, holidays, Christmas’s, birthdays etc and he has said we can sort this out between us at the time. Now my solicitor has asked a series of questions in regards to extra contact and I have asked him and he just says we can sort this between us 🤷🏼‍♀️ will the judge just take this? I have asked him about alternative birthdays and Christmas etc and about holidays and half terms but he just said we can sort it between us, also when he starts work again he said he wont be able to commit to having our child more due to having to work and that’s why he has said every other Friday to Sunday as that’s what he can commit too otherwise he won’t be employed by someone if he has limited working days he can do.

Is this going to be acceptable in court In two weeks? I mean I have asked him and I’ve not lied or anything he’s the one saying he can only commit to Friday to Sunday every other weekend?

Im just worried the judge will not accept this and if honest I want this to be the final court case because i don’t want to have to attend more hearings in the future. I mean it’s what the ex wants contact wise and I am agreeing to it? 🤷🏼‍♀️

Well a judge will be telling him. What a prick he is.
i suggest you use ChatGPT to draw up a fair and realistic contact arrangement with all detail included and get your solicitor to put that in your position statement. The more details and reasonable the better. If dad responds with some nonsense it's unlikely that the judge would go against your suggestions.

He might not stick to the court order but the court order can make sure you have protected time for you and DD that he cannot interfere with. So what would you like, alternate Christmas, birthdays, your birthday, mothers day etc. Get that written in. I would push for half the holidays too, so atleast you have weeks that you can make plans for, you don't want to go through the whole process again in two years. He is planning to mess you about and is hanging the 50/50 over your head, so set him up to fail. The more evidence you have that he is not sticking to the arrangement, the less likely he will be awarded more contact at the next hearing as clearly he fully intends to return to court in the future and often men like your ex do once they get a job and CMS kicks in.

Just a thought, will a 'lives with' order mean you don't have to ask him to take DC out of the country on holiday?

My ex refused permission for me to take DC on holiday and in the PSO I was awarded residency (terminology may have changed).

You talk about taking his control away. It sounds like you're really moving your mindset to taking control yourself which is a HUGE step op. Be sure to add in anything you can to set in stone the minimum you want - including lives with if it means you don't have to go begging to him (or to a court) for permission to go on holiday in the future.

My ex started out demanding 50/50 with a completely inflexible job and endless overtime that he insisted on doing to the detriment of our family. Within 2 years every other weekend dropped to every couple of months, and last year he saw only one of the DC twice, the other not at all.

Don't give him any opportunity to control you over DC arrangements. Get it all included in the court order.

Ignore his threats, he won’t follow through when he won’t even have her more than every other weekend.

put it all down for the judge:
father has requested every other Fri - Sun
split for special occasions XYZ (child to be made available to father on his given dates)

and leave it at that.

no judge will take a child away from a parent without necessary reasons

With my ex I (eventually) had it put in the court order that the children would be made available EOW with collection at 6pm Friday. If no contact was made by 6pm then children stayed with me (previous tactic had been to have me hanging around all weekend and turning up randomly). Any changes to weekend - late pick up, shorter time etc only by agreement.

Half of all holidays with him to have the second half of holidays with him to confirm his chosen dates one month before. Him having the second half meant I could arrange anytime we were going away without the risk of him not bringing them back on time.

Alternate Christmas - 6pm Christmas Eve to 10am Boxing Day - with him confirming by November 25th on his years if he was taking them for the full period or a smaller amount of time.

Father day and Mother's Day to be with the respective person with a swap of weekends if it wasn't 'their' weekend (swap of the weekend before).

Child's birthday alternated annually. Father to confirm one month before if having them. Saturday after their birthday always with me as we always done their party then and that should be allowed to continue. Father invited if he wished to attend (was always in a venue and he never came).

I asked for birthday parties and activities to be kept up (mine did two sports that he started them in!) but the judge said that couldn't be forced.

As it was once the judge agreed with all of this and his control of me was completely gone he then saw the chicken five times in three years and then very sporadically. Other than a couple of family weddings and funerals that they attended with their grandparents now hasn't seen him for 7 years and the other 5 years.

I expect your ex will be the same once his control has gone

But you can't agree between yourselves, that's why you're going through the legal process of having a contact arrangements formalised by a judge. You're saying you want it laid out formally, he's saying he wants to keep it open. That's what you're disagreeing on, not even getting as far as properly discussing specific days and times. So you (or your solicitor) needs to put that to him - that an open ended, and hoc arrangement is not acceptable to you due to previous disagreements. You want a proper and complete arrangement drawn up. As I said earlier, no reason that you can't still change or swap days around if you're both in agreement, but on occasions when you don't agree, you have the cao as the default position.

And you do need to look forward to school age to try and make this agreement suitable for when your dd is older too. Otherwise there's a good chance you'll end up back in court in few years to amend it. So get something in there about school holidays now. The judge will probably ask you both what you want for school holidays and significant dates during the hearing, if you don't specify in the application. So have an idea ready and be firm about not leaving it as an ad-hoc, 'agree it amongst ourselves' solution. The bare minimum is usually two weeks with the nrp, but up to 50/50 is perfectly reasonable.

Your idea of having to find work that fits around school holidays, childcare etc is somewhat optimistic. In reality you'll likely end up significantly compromising your earning potential to work around these things. If your ex takes minimal contact so it doesn't affect his earning potential, good chance he'll later regret it when it comes to child maintenance calculation as a combination of higher earnings and lower contact mean he'll pay more.

Also bear in mind that dc tend be more attached to mum in their earlier years and less to dad. But when they hit school age that often starts to change and parenting becomes a lot more even. Your ex may not realise this, or have considered longer term.

My court order states ex has to give me x amount of notice for his holiday contact. Absolutely no agreement between us he just tells me when. It’s a godsend honestly I would never agree to an order that requires sorting anything out between us with a man who uses contact to fuck up your life like he has done to you with holidays.

I would not even mention birthdays and Christmas and if the judge asks then say you want alternate ordering no agreement between parents.

once my ex power to use contact to need up my life was removed he almost completely dropped contact

Get everything in writing regarding holidays etc. Have it written in a legal document. Yes, if you want to swap and change this can be agreed between the two of you if it suits you both, but you NEED that agreement to start with.

Even if the parent doesn’t work, i don’t think it makes it okay.
Talking from experience. But it happens, I have lived it.

@Redruby2020 Doesn't make what OK?

Your solicitor should know the answer to all your questions. They have the best picture of your situation and how your ex is.
I bet you’re paying enough for their knowledge.

(been there, done that, STILL pissed off at all the knowledge I was assumed to have when I was paying thousands for a family lawyer).

Christmas is a big one. It absolutely needs to be put in the order.

Omg I’m so anxious my solicitors have send me an FP8 and told me they won’t be representing me anymore literally 5 mins before they closed!?!? I’m so confused it’s less than two weeks before the court hearing and I’m feeling extremely anxious and confused!! It’s legal aid I’m receiving too.

You don't really need a lawyer OP. Me and my ex represented ourselves.

I’m just scared because I’ve got to write the statement myself but court approved and it’s less than two weeks until my court date and they haven’t given me an email for the court or anything.

Morning everyone!

so I did my statement, I wrote every thing out as to what I can make available for my daughter to spend time with her dad. So holidays, Christmas’s, mothers days, Father’s Day, half terms, birthdays etc

just a question I received my cafcass report in June, I basically have done everything the judge has requested. Her dad hasn’t, it says that they couldn’t contact him and that the cafcass report hasn’t been completed on his side. I’m guessing this is not ok because he has before tried to claim I’m mentally unstable and said he wanted full custody, does this mean it will go against him? He’s also told me he won’t be going on the 13th as he reckons he hasn’t had any emails etc and will ask for it to be adjourned I really don’t need this as don’t want it to go on any longer than it has.

No, it won't reflect well on him. Who has served the notice of hearing on him? Was it the court or your former solicitor? If the latter then you need them to forward you the email so you've got evidence in court that he has had it. He could conceivably get the hearing adjourned but if he's playing silly buggers it will get sorted without his participation eventually.

So my solicitors called and said they haven’t stopped representing me that it was for an older case that is now close (phew)

I will ask them to provide this evidence because I don’t need this going on in the new year. Needs to be sorted now really.

So he received the arrangements I put forward and he won’t sign it, says we will have to fight it in court because he don’t agree with it all.

his reasons because I have stated I want to meet him half way on the court weekends he has our daughter and he cannot come to the house and doesn’t agree to it. ( yet he makes nasty vicious comments about my eldest son constantly)

he doesn’t agree to have her two weeks in the summer holidays because he has to work and as I want the living with order that’s down to me.

he also doesn’t want to communicate via the court approved app.

😩 this is going to go on longer than I wanted.

Short term pain for long term peace.

most judges are going to see right through his antics. You will end up with some form of imperfect, but decent agreement that will serve as a default. If someday your ex becomes a rational human being, you can always deviate from that agreement and be flexible. When he starts being ridiculous again, you will have the default agreement to fall back on.

Did you not go to mediation? You should not be battling this out in Court. They're really not interested in your bickering.

Have you got an existing Parenting Plan?
Your solicitors should be sorting this out, not taking every decision to the Family Court.

I just don’t get what the issues are? All that should matter to him is him getting time with his child but he don’t like the fact I’ve stated about using the court approved app to communicate and he isn’t to come to my home. He only wants to come to the home because he wants to know whoses here, what I’m doing etc it’s so draining honestly. All year I’ve had court cases and I just want it to be over with now.

the arrangement I put forward are for court he said he will sign it but has now told me no because he didn’t agree to not coming to the house and us meeting half way and he didn’t agree to us using the court approved app either.

mediation he didn’t respond to so it went to court.

Hi everyone!

court was today it’s been adjourned much to my dislike 🙄 got to wait for another date!

What a faff for you OP. Hope you get another date soon.