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Hi,
I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction.
I recently got married, one son is ours and one is a step son for me. He is eleven years old and lives full time with us, his natural father died a few years ago. There is a court order in place for contact for him to see his grandparents once a month, they are quite emotionally abusive, but lie well to CAFCASS and my step son was too scared to speak in disagreement of them and so the court granted the order. (Our CAFCASS officer was a complete wa..waist of space). Anyway, when my step sons father died we started steps for me adopt him, this was blocked by his grandparents on both sides, they threatened that relatives who have hardly seen him in their life would start applying for contact orders. His grandparents are very selective with "The Truth". The financial implications of that would be impossible to manage and we couldn't risk the court ruling that he be with other people every weekend until he's eighteen. Although more recently he has started to ask about when he can change the order himself.
Anyway, now that his mum and I are married he wants to have my surname - he wants it hyphenated with his dads name but not his mums maiden name. Do his grandparents have a say in that? What is the process? We have been to the court, they gave two copies of most of the papers the British legal system posses (it seems!) but we really don't understand what paperwork to complete. In case it's relevant we're in Wales.
In addition we want to get me parental responsibility for him. The name change and PR is known to him and he wants them both (he still wants me to adopt him but he seems to understand why we can't pursue that).
Just as some more background, his grandparents have a legal relationship to him but have no biological link as they adopted his mum, my wife when she was two. Looking through social services records it seems they were good at manipulating the system then too. My wife found her real mum three years ago and it's like they were never apart now. My step son sees these new grandparents as his real grandparents even though there is no legal link to them...complicated eh?!
Thanks for any help
I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction.
I recently got married, one son is ours and one is a step son for me. He is eleven years old and lives full time with us, his natural father died a few years ago. There is a court order in place for contact for him to see his grandparents once a month, they are quite emotionally abusive, but lie well to CAFCASS and my step son was too scared to speak in disagreement of them and so the court granted the order. (Our CAFCASS officer was a complete wa..waist of space). Anyway, when my step sons father died we started steps for me adopt him, this was blocked by his grandparents on both sides, they threatened that relatives who have hardly seen him in their life would start applying for contact orders. His grandparents are very selective with "The Truth". The financial implications of that would be impossible to manage and we couldn't risk the court ruling that he be with other people every weekend until he's eighteen. Although more recently he has started to ask about when he can change the order himself.
Anyway, now that his mum and I are married he wants to have my surname - he wants it hyphenated with his dads name but not his mums maiden name. Do his grandparents have a say in that? What is the process? We have been to the court, they gave two copies of most of the papers the British legal system posses (it seems!) but we really don't understand what paperwork to complete. In case it's relevant we're in Wales.
In addition we want to get me parental responsibility for him. The name change and PR is known to him and he wants them both (he still wants me to adopt him but he seems to understand why we can't pursue that).
Just as some more background, his grandparents have a legal relationship to him but have no biological link as they adopted his mum, my wife when she was two. Looking through social services records it seems they were good at manipulating the system then too. My wife found her real mum three years ago and it's like they were never apart now. My step son sees these new grandparents as his real grandparents even though there is no legal link to them...complicated eh?!
Thanks for any help
