Dear Andy, thank you very much for your email. If the consent of your stepson`s biological father is not available, an application must be made to the court. The success of the application depends on your stepson`s best interests, your level of commitment, the strength of your relationship with your stepson, and why you want parental responsibility. You should note that public relations can be withdrawn by your stepson`s biological father, but this is extremely rare and there would have to be very good reasons for a court to do so. You should seek advice from an arbitration lawyer based on your specific situation. Please let me know if I can help. If my spouse has children with another woman without marriage and I am legally married to my spouse, are the children my stepchildren and am I their mother-in-law? There was no marriage at all between her mother and my husband, are they my children? An informal son-in-law or son-in-law is the offspring of the spouse, but not his or her own offspring, either biologically or by adoption. Dear Nicola. Thank you for reading the blog and commenting.
In the absence of an agreement between you, your daughter`s stepfather would have to file an application for child disposition if he wanted your daughter to live with him 50% of the time. Since you have already applied for a PR exemption and your daughter is supposed to live with you, I suspect the court wants to deal with the agreements and the relationship between your daughter and her stepfather. Given your daughter`s age, her wants and feelings will be taken into account, but there are a number of other factors the court will consider when it comes to child arrangements, whether for stepparents or biological parents. Please visit the children`s section of our website. I would advise you to seek legal advice from a resolution lawyer. Stepchildren are generally not considered legal children of their stepparents. Even a step-parent who has lived with their stepparent since childhood and emotionally views a step-parent as their parent is not legally considered a child of that parent. Therefore, a stepchild generally does not inherit from a step-parent unless the will includes them as a child.
However, state laws can vary, so it`s best to learn your own state`s rules. Read more: How to exclude stepchildren from your estate Thank you for your comment Amanda. You need to determine who your partner has named as the beneficiary of their life insurance policy. You should be aware that changing your son`s name from the certificate survey does not create a legal relationship between your son and your partner, so it is unlikely that the life insurance company will consider him to be your partner`s child. I hope this helps. My daughter marries her partner who has 2 children from a previous relationship. I met them, but now I am asked to take care of them during the night when they are not present in the building. I`m worried I don`t have legal rights over them, so if something were to happen, where do I stand or what should I do? I think I should reject this request.
Can you advise or help? Hello. I have parental responsibility for my son-in-law. His mother (my wife) passed away last year and my stepson has been living with me for 10 months. His father sees him every other weekend. My son-in-law has special needs and is a handful. I tried to get his dad to take him another 3 hours to give me more freedom on the weekend without him, but his dad doesn`t want to and says I`m responsible and should keep going. His last letter suggested that he had sought legal advice, which I must now obtain. Can my stepson`s father (who has had parental responsibility since birth) force me to continue to be the primary caregiver and limit his own contacts? I don`t think I will be able to meet my stepson`s needs when he goes to high school in 2 years and I would prefer that he move in with his father (and his new wife) at that time and keep in touch but have the chance to move on and work full time again, etc. Could a court insist that my son-in-law continue to live with me? If this becomes very controversial, can I dissolve my parental responsibility? That`s not what I want to do, but if his father has legal power over me, he`ll use it to make sure I carry all the burden as he moves forward in his new life. He pays me very little child support (less than I spend on child care) and I am not able to work full time.
Any experience or advice would be appreciated as my current position is not working. Does the step-parent relationship apply only to the legally married spouse of one of the parents after the divorce, or does it also apply to the former spouse of one of the parents? In other words, if a man later married and divorced a woman, then remarried and had children with his second wife, would the first wife be considered a stepmother or just his first wife? And if woman no. 1 had children, would they be half-siblings or just half-siblings? A step-parent therefore becomes a step-parent only after marrying one of the biological parents. You are not legally a step-parent if you only live with your partner, no matter how long. My mother married my stepfather last year and I became close to him. I know he can`t pass me under current UK law because I`m an adult, but is there anything in British law that would allow for a more legal relationship between him and me, because I consider him my father because everything was done for me? Thank you for your request. Are you marrying your fiancé? does not change the position automatically. Unless there is an order that prevents your child from having contact with your fiancé? Then, since you have parental responsibility, you can decide whether or not your daughter can spend time with your fiancé.
Should your daughter`s father take legal action to order that she not spend time with your fiancé? and the court should assess whether or not such an injunction is appropriate in all the circumstances. I therefore recommend that you seek advice from a professional who is a member of Resolution and who is therefore committed to constructively resolving family conflicts and who follows a code of conduct that promotes a non-confrontational approach to family matters. Dear Michael, thank you very much for your comment. As you have read, you are your son`s stepfather, but that does not automatically give you legal rights to him. However, there are legal steps that can be taken to formalize parenting arrangements for your stepson if you and your wife separate, such as obtaining parental responsibility and issuing a child`s will that sets out living conditions for your stepson. If you are not separating from your wife, consider entering into a step-parent agreement. At common law, the step-parent-stepchild relationship did not create rights or impose obligations. According to Justice Schwellenbach of the Washington Supreme Court, “The rule of feudal law excluded half-blood descendants from inheritance. The rule has never found favor in this country (United States)” In re Smith`s Estate, 299 pp.
2d 550 (1956). Subject to the rights of the surviving spouse, children have a higher inheritance tax than other blood relatives. In many jurisdictions, the same principle applies to children adopted from intestate law. Once the debts of the estate have been paid and the surviving spouse has taken over his or her legal share, the rest of the estate is divided into equal distribution shares, the shares provided for by the Filiation and Distribution Act, among the number of children of the deceased.