Legal status: parental responsibility
What is parental responsibility?
Parental responsibility is defined as all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority of a parent. If you have parental responsibility for a child, it means that you have the authority to act as a parent.
You can, for example, give consent to medical treatment and make educational decisions. You also have the right to be consulted in key decisions about your child's upbringing (for example, you have to consent to your child being taken out of the UK or to his/her surname being changed).
However, you do not (unless you are also a legal parent) have the legal rights and status attaching to legal parenthood. For example, your child will not have any rights of inheritance from you, which can make it very important for you to put in place an appropriate will. Find out more about legal parenthood.
Unlike legal parenthood, parental responsibility at most lasts only until your child is 18 and could be altered by the court if circumstances change.
Who has parental responsibility?
If you are your child's birth mother, you will have parental responsibility automatically.
If you are her husband, you will also have parental responsibility automatically.
If you are her civil partner, you will have parental responsibility automatically if you are treated as your child's parent under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (click here for more information).
If you are an adoptive parent, you will have parental responsibility by virtue of your adoption order.
Who can acquire parental responsibility?
If you do not fall into the above categories and so do not have parental responsibility automatically, you may be able to acquire parental responsibility (in some cases together with legal parenthood, if you are not already a legal parent).
Acquiring parental responsibility: unmarried fathers/ lesbian partners
If you are an unmarried father, you will not have parental responsibility automatically when your child is born, even though you are his or her legal father. However, you can obtain parental responsibility by being named on your child's birth certificate (provided that your child was born after 1 December 2003). To be named on the birth certificate, you need to attend the birth registration with your child's mother.
Alternatively, you can acquire parental responsibility by:
- marrying your child's mother,
- signing an agreement with your child's mother or
- obtaining a parental responsibility order from the court.
Similar rules now also apply if you are an unmarried lesbian parent i.e. if you are not in a civil partnership with your child's birth mother, but are treated as a legal parent under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (click here for more information).
Acquiring parental responsibility: step parents
If you are the spouse or civil partner of a parent with parental responsibility but are not a legal parent yourself, the law classifies you as a step parent. As a step parent, you can acquire parental responsibility either by:
- signing an agreement with your child's other parent/s with parental responsibility or
- obtaining a parental responsibility order from the court.
As well as conventional step parents (i.e. after a child's parent remarries), this applies to families created through assisted reproduction including:
- lesbian civil partners who are not treated as parents in their own right (for example in respect of children conceived before 6 April 2009),
- intended parents in certain surrogacy situations,
- non-biological gay fathers conceiving through surrogacy or co-parenting.
Acquiring parental responsibility: non-parents
If you are not a parent or a step parent (for example if you are a grandparent, other relative or a parent's unmarried partner), you cannot acquire parental responsibility directly.
However, you may be able to acquire parental responsibility indirectly by obtaining a residence order from the court. You may need to apply first for the court's permission before you can apply for the order itself, depending on your status and the nature of your relationship with the child.
Acquiring parental responsibility: the court's approach
In considering whether to award parental responsibility (or a residence order, or leave to apply for a residence order) the court's paramount consideration is the welfare of the child. Please contact us if you would like to discuss how this might apply to you, as the law can in practice be complex depending on your circumstances.
