Want to emmigrate to Oz & have a son from a previous relationship. Do i need his fathers permisson?

Question

My ex partner and I were not married and he does not have parental responsibility (my son was born before 1 December 2003) and never applied for parental responsibility.

He used to see our son every fortnight about four years ago and then contact stopped, due to the fact he is in and out of prison. He has made no attempt to see our son in the last 4 years or paid a penny in maintence since we split up when my son was 4 years old, he is almost 13 years old now.

I'm not sure where my son's father is living or whether he is back in prison. None of my ex's family (grandfather, uncles, aunties) have anything to do with my son either.

My current partner has taken on the role of father to my son and does a fantastic job, we also have a 3 year old together.

Do I need his permission take our son abroad to live? Should I seek legeal advice? Contacted a migrant consultant who suggested I get a court order. Any constructive advice would be appreciated.

Answer 1

I feel it would be safer to get advice from a lawyer.

Answer 2

If you have sole custody then you do not need his authorizaion---if you do not then it is in your best interest to get his permission.  If you can't find him or he will not respond to you then you can go to court and get sole custody on the grounds of abandonment.

You will also need a passport for your son to go abroad and you must also have his father's permission for this if you do not have sole custody.

Answer 3

Is your ex partner's name on the birth certificate? Does the community see him as the father?

Australia takes international parental kidnapping deadly seriously, and will closely scrutinise any application they suspect of falling under that category. If you don't make the application properly you are at risk of losing your application fee or having your visa cancelled once you are in Australia.

Here is a worse case scenario. You fudge a few things on the application and get your visas. You and your family are living happily in Australia. Several years pass and your ex-partner decides to make things difficult for you. He makes one phone call to the Australian Embassy, and your visas will be cancelled almost immediately. You have very limited appeal options, and the whole family is removed from Australia.

You need to dot every i and cross every t, to protect yourself from this happening.

It is a very complicated issue, and you are going to need to pay for proper advice rather than getting bits and pieces of random info from the Internet.

Answer 4

You'll have a lot of problems if you don't have a court order in place giving you full custody. Especially with passports, enrolling into schools etc. At least with a court order your paperwork will be easier to process.

In Australia you won't be able to get a change of name (if you wish to change your son's surname) without a court order overriding a parent's consent (if the parent's name appears on the birth certificate)

Answer 5

Use the "don't ask, don't tell" philosophy. You'll be fine.

Answer 6

A migrant consultant is an expert in the field, if a court order is the advice given it makes sense to take that advice.

Answer 7

well if you have parental responsibility then you do not need your ex's permission to go.

i,d just make sure you do the right thing by going to see a solicitor.

Good luck and i hope all turns out well for you all.

Answer 8

What you need to do is go before a judge and explain your situation and ask the courts to let you take your son out of the country. A lot of times whether the father pays for support or not or is in the child's life, does not necessarily mean that he should not be consulted.

Since he is not in your life and you have no way of contacting him, the courts would be the best way to go as he is still considered a the father until he gives up his parental rights.

Worst case scenario if you left without a proper authorization, it could be considered kidnapping.

Answer 9

This is a custody issue and legal advice from a qualified lawyer in this area should always be sought rather than taking advice from layman.

Generally speaking, unless you have sole custody of your child then you will need written permission from the father to take the child out of the country.

Answer 10

One of the questions the Australians will ask will be whether you can legally take you son out of the country.  You therefore need to talk to a lawyer and work out what to do.

Answer 11

I think you should get something legal.

There would be nothing worse than arriving at the airport all set to go and then there is a problem.

Even worse arriving in Australia and finding there is a problem.