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Lives with order?

J

John

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Morning all,
Can anyone shine light on what a lives with order means? Ex has requested children “lives with” her.?
From what I can work out is that it removes some rights I have as a father and have to ask her permission to do certain things with the children, ie holidays?

Cheers
J
 
Hi John,

"Lives With" means that the child is resident with that parent. It means that they are responsible for the day-to-day life of the child, and can make routine decisions regarding that without involvement of/interference from the non-resident parent.

Major decisions: e.g. medical care, school, religious stuff... Should still be made jointly.

The "spends time with" parent is sidelined and can be made jump through hoops by the parent who has a "lives with order." However, it is possible to get provisions regarding stuff like holidays included in the order even if you are the "spends time with" parent. Something along the lines of:

Plans to travel abroad to be communicated at least 3 months in advance. Passport(s) to be handed over a minimum of 30 days prior to date of travel.

Practically, you do not need consent, unless there is a port alert in place following risk of abduction. The airline staff do not pay particular attention. There is permission for "lives with" parents to take the child out of the country for up to 30 days without the other parent's consent. This does not give them the right to breach the order, just means it cannot be classed as abduction if under 30 days.

You need to read about this extensively.

Some say there it is not a massive difference between "lives with" and "spends time with." In terms of legal technicalities around parental rights, that is more or less true. But, it is a harder road for the "spends time with" parent if relations are strained.
 
Resolute has explained. Basically she's applied for sole residency. What used to be called "Residency" and "Contact" are now called "Lives with" and "Spends time with". What used to be called shared or joint residency is now called "lives with both parents".

Technically you both have equal parental rights and responsibilities by means of having equal PR. But as we know it doesn't quite work like that as an ex can withold the kids and no sanctions - forcing you to go to court to get an order. And they can unilaterally suddenly change a school without your consent (even though they're not supposed to) with no sanctions. Possession is 9/10ths of the law.

Apart from the holiday aspect - there is no real difference between lives with and spends time with - apart from psychology (one parent feeling superior or more important if they're that way inclined) and the other big thing - the "parent with care" card. The parent the kids live with is also known as the parent with care. And some ex's can misuse that - eg tell schools and GP's not to contact you (giving false reasons why often). You can usually get round it if you have PR but they are basically seen as "the parent".

Psychologically - if it's "lives with both parents" you are more fully equal - even if the time is unequal - you can still have lives with both parents even if the time is 60/40 rather than 50/50.

Psychologically and in practice it can help when dealing with schools and other authorities to be able to say "we are both the parent with care and my consent is needed for any change of school" (or whatever).

Psychologically it may not make a jot of difference to a difficult ex who would still see herself as the most important parent regardless of the terminology.

The difference with the holidays is. A parent who the child lives with can go abroad for up to a month without needing the other parent's consent (providing it is within their court ordered time). Whereas a parent who the child spends time with needs the consent of the "resident" parent if they want to take a holiday out of the country - even within their court ordered time. And some ex's can be obstructive in that way and not give consent. You can still get the holiday ordered with an urgent specific issues application though. But that's a pain.

As Resolute says, you can instead have a clause in a spends time with order that says both parents can take the children abroad on holiday.

The only other difference I think is - a "lives with both parents" order is taken much more seriously by the courts IMO. And can make any future applications easier. Plus if you ever needed to apply for "residency" - which would only be in an extreme situation as you already have "shared" residency - then it's simply a matter of removing the Mother's residency to Spends time with - as opposed to a change of residency - because you already have it.

I think it is a good thing to push for (lives with both parents) if you can. You usually need an order for at least 5 nights a fortnight (ie about a third of the time) for an order to be "lives with both parents". Although it can be less - I have one with only 4 nights a fortnight. Any less than that and it would have to be spends time with.
 
Cheers gents.
So I think what I will do is try and fight her lives with order and go with lives with both parents, unless there can be a clause in there which allows me to take them away without her permission, during a school holiday which is ordered to spend with me. (If I can actually get to that stage!)
I can’t actually find much information about lives with order on the net.
J
 
All orders are Child Arrangements orders now. A child arrangements order can say "Child lives with Mother and spends time with Father as follows (listing the schedule). Or it can say "Child lives with both parents" and set out when child lives with each parent.

When you say ex has requested a "lives with" order - do you mean she has submitted the application to court or do you mean you applied to court and she requested the lives with order in a position statement or something?

When there are no orders, you are legally both equal and neither parent has "residency". Although in reality, possession is 9/10ths of the law. So by requesting a "lives with" order she is wanting to change that and have it legalised that she is the main parent and parent with care.

I can't comment on how you ask for "lives with both" without knowing what stage you're at. Whether you're responding to her application on a C7 or whether it's at a later stage. If you let us know, can help there.
 
She asked for it at the last hearing, verbally.
I am the applicant and started the process, currently at s7 stage.
She has been persistent at asking for a s7, and asking for cafcass to speak to the children, which makes me think they have been coached and prepared what to say to them. Hopefully cafcass pick up on that!
J
 
What did you ask for in your application wording? Did you specifically ask for "lives with both parents" or just ask for time with the children? Oh Cafcass will be Mother biased no doubt and probably recommend lives with Mother spends time with Father. Unless you specifically asked for "lives with both parents" in the application. But that doesn't mean you still can't argue for it at a final hearing.
 
My 'spends time with' order has permission from the Court to go abroad in it provided details of the holidays are shared, the ex also has to share details too but she doesn't need permission as she has 'lives with'. It also says that passports to be handed over 14 days before the holiday.

I thought about the differences of the two orders and I think it depends on the kind of person your ex is. My ex has been a nightmare with me but she is a good mum to our children. So to get my order with as little hostility as possible and as quick as possible I was happy with 'spends time with' as long as it had the holidays abroad included, knowing that my ex was very capable of looking after our children and I had no worries there. I really didn't want a final hearing for this and cause more hostility as it wasn't really going to change anything for the kids or myself. If I had concerns about her parenting I probably would have pushed for 'lives with'.
 
Since you are in S7, CAFCASS will have to consider the welfare of the children, namely their psychology needs, the living conditions the parents can provide and to keep their daily routine as stable as possible, if there is no abuse or violence. If CAFCASS finds the children would rather spend more time with their mother, or their mother's residence is closer to their school, chances are the CAFCASS will recommend the children to "live with" the mother, or, even if to live with both parents, the children will spend more time with the mother during school term time. Anyhow, it is better to ask for a court order after the hearing to avoid one of you change your mind in the future.
 
Is there any specific reasons why a lives with the mother order would be granted over shared residency?
 
Lives with mum is the default. If you want shared residence you have to push for it and you likely won't get it. If your ex is hostile and you don't have shared residence she may well alienate once the child is old enough and you won't be able to do anything about it then.

Cafcass reset position is if the child at 13+ rejects the "spends time with" father, they're all good with that.
 
I firstly echo Ash's response that you should try to get a "live with both parents" order, which means you have equal right to take custody of the children if you want to. But different people have different situation. You need to first ask yourself if you want to share the care of the children, or, like some people, just want to walk away and start a new life. In my case, I fought off all the way to the end against my ex's application for the children to live with her and to spend time with me. At the end I won because the court and CAFCASS recognized I am capable and has a history of taking care of my young children. Also, like it or not, the court will always asks CAFCASS to issue a child welfare report then S7, as part of the regular procedure to protect the children and listen to what they want.
The child arrangement order also has implication on the finance arrangement, because if your ex wins and the children will live with her and spend time with you, it means the ex will have to spend more money on the children than you do, thus you will need to pay her for child care, whilst if it is a live with both parents order, you might not need to pay more.
 
Regarding Jimi's comment, my elder one was 14 when she got the interview with CAFCASS and she said she want to live with her mother, but you need to know children are not aware of the meaning and difference between to " live with" and to "spend time with", so they might only mean they want to spend more time with their mother. And CACASS in the interview doesn't only listen to what the children say, but also ask them to draw some pictures to try to find out the relationship they have had with their parents and what they really want to. So a child saying she wants to live with one parent doesn't really means the court will just follow that and make the decision.
 
Why would a lives with both order not be granted? I don't see why when both parents have parental responsibility they don't automatically get lives with both. Once all allegations are dismissed.
 
Good question! And there have been many campaigns to change the law to automatic 50/50 shared care at the time of separation. All have failed in the Uk unfortunately. Holland and Sweden have it though.

Unfortunately in the Uk. there are a bunch of women advisers who are strongly against it (I believe I read that on Karen Woodall's site or somewhere similar).

In 2012 to 2014 at the time of the Family Justice review, there was a huge push for equal shared care by law, primarily from Families need Fathers. It failed (primarily due to strong opposition by certain female advisers I believe). I think the justification given out was - this might leave some children with abusers.

However what did change at that time was the Child Arrangements Programme was brought in, along with equal parental responsibility and residency and contact orders were scrapped. There was an assumption that a Father should have regular and significant time if there were no welfare issues. And for a while it was going well and a lot more 50/50 orders were being made by Judges.

Then there seemed to be a huge pushback, during and since the pandemic - by womens groups who had a lot of media attention and things seem to have got worse again.
 
ESU said:
Regarding Jimi's comment, my elder one was 14 when she got the interview with CAFCASS and she said she want to live with her mother, but you need to know children are not aware of the meaning and difference between to " live with" and to "spend time with", so they might only mean they want to spend more time with their mother. And CACASS in the interview doesn't only listen to what the children say, but also ask them to draw some pictures to try to find out the relationship they have had with their parents and what they really want to. So a child saying she wants to live with one parent doesn't really means the court will just follow that and make the decision.
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cafcass lie all the time. They'll get the child to draw a picture then interpret the picture to back their own bullshit which is dad can have a fob off contact order that we and the court will never enforce if mum doesn't want to. And you're gone.
 
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