IANAL, but my understanding was very much that this (signing the birth cert with the mother) was a new, additional way of getting parental responsibility under the Children Act 1989.
My guess is that you're right that this can only apply to (re-)registrations made after the new Act came in to force. It's very, very rare for law to be retrospective, even when there is a compelling reason, and I can't see one here.
Unless I'm much mistaken, you can still get PR in the following ways:
- If the mother agrees, making a PR agreement - fill in form C(PRA) from your local county court/family proceedings court, take it back to the court with ID, then send it off to the Registry of the Family Division in London - there's no fee for this. The mother has to sign too.
- If the mother doesn't agree, applying to a court for a Parental Responsibility Order, or for a Residence Order (which gives you PR automatically).
- Marrying the mother. I think the mother has to agree to this one too :-)
You definitely very much want PR if you are the father and want to be sure you'll be recognised as such by professionals (teachers, doctors, etc) and the courts - but you knew that anyway :-)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baggyeyes
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-11 04:12 am (UTC)My guess is that you're right that this can only apply to (re-)registrations made after the new Act came in to force. It's very, very rare for law to be retrospective, even when there is a compelling reason, and I can't see one here.
Unless I'm much mistaken, you can still get PR in the following ways:
- If the mother agrees, making a PR agreement - fill in form C(PRA) from your local county court/family proceedings court, take it back to the court with ID, then send it off to the Registry of the Family Division in London - there's no fee for this. The mother has to sign too.
- If the mother doesn't agree, applying to a court for a Parental Responsibility Order, or for a Residence Order (which gives you PR automatically).
- Marrying the mother. I think the mother has to agree to this one too :-)
You definitely very much want PR if you are the father and want to be sure you'll be recognised as such by professionals (teachers, doctors, etc) and the courts - but you knew that anyway :-)