Hello dear lawyers (again)

[lovingboth]

Just checking - section 111 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 finally came into force on the 1st December.

It gives unmarried fathers 'parental responsibility' iff they're named on the birth certificate (until now, you've needed a specific agreement with the mother or order made by a court).

But it only applies to (re-)registrations made on or after that date, doesn't it?

Comments

[snagglepat.livejournal.com]

Yep, I can get (almost) parental responsibility through a residence order currently (which is close to, but not as good as full parental responsibility), but I do believe that at some point very soon (or maybe already) the law changes/has changed so that same-sex couples can adopt. If this is the case then I imagine it would be worth us pursuing that route, but I've been anable to find any info on that yet. Even the residence order is a trial to get, but it's not uncommon anymore and it shouldn't be too much of a problem to get sorted out, just a hassle.

There's also the civil partnership white paper that does say that couples who register as civil partners will be able to adopt their partner's children in the same way that heterosexual, married step-parents can currently. I'm not going to hold my breath on this one though, and it would mean we'd have to do the registration thing which we may or may not want to do.

Opinions are split on how useful a written agreement is, but it certainly won't do us any harm when the time comes. We will have to look into it. :)

[lovingboth]

Yep, this act says same sex couples can adopt. But the adoption process redefines hassle, even in cases where one of the couple is a parent of the child.