Residence and Contact

Residence and Contact

The words "Custody" and "Access" are still regularly used by people when talking about which parent the children will live with and how often the other parent will see them. The new terms (brought into use by the Children Act 1989) are Residence and Contact.

Residence is given to the parent who will look after the children most of the time ie. the children will reside with them. That parent is then called the Resident Parent

Contact is given to the parent who visits the children or who has the children come to visit them. That parent is called the Non-Resident Parent

Some important principles

The Children Act set out some fundamental principles that should be borne in mind when dealing with any dispute involving children:

• The children's interests are paramount, ie., more important than anyone else's.
• It is presumed that any delay in the court dealing with issues concerning children may prejudice those children
• Court orders concerning children should only be made where it is better for there to be an order than to have no order at all - if there is no dispute the courts will usually make no order in cases concerning residence or contact.

As a result of these principles, the courts attach much importance to dealing with disputes involving children as speedily as resources allow. The courts will also only make orders regarding children where they are needed to resolve a dispute between the parents of those children about their welfare. In divorce proceedings, for example, before the Children Act, the courts nearly always made custody orders and access orders in respect of the children. Since the Children Act such orders are only made rarely, eg., where there is a dispute over who should have the children and that dispute has to decided by the court.

The courts will also presume that it is in the best interests of the child to have contact with both parents. Only in exceptional cases will the courts say that there should be no contact with the Non-Resident Parent.

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The articles on legal topics published in these pages are for interest only and are necessarily general in their terms. You should not act (or refrain from acting) on the basis of the information given without specific advice, as the principles and laws concerned may change, and their application will vary according to the particular circumstances.