What rights do grandparents have to see their grandchildren?
In most circumstances, grandparents do not have an automatic legal right to see their grandchildren. They can, however, ask the Court for permission to apply for a Child Arrangements Order which will set out who the child is to spend time with. When deciding whether to grant permission, the Court will consider the nature of the proposed Application, the grandparent’s connection with the children and whether the application would disrupt the child. A successful permission Application will not automatically mean grandparents will get an Order to see the children, but it is the first stage of the 2 stage process completed.
If permission is granted, the Court will then determine the Application for a Child Arrangements Order. The Court will consider the welfare checklist (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/section/1). The children’s best interests are the Court’s paramount consideration. The Court will take into account any hostility between the parents and the grandparents and consider whether there is any risk of emotional abuse to the children by being caught in the middle of an adult conflict.
If possible, any disagreements regarding grandparents seeing their grandchildren should be resolved through mediation, family therapy or any other alternative dispute method before the Court process is utilised. Grandparents should also be aware that although they will want to see their grandchildren as much as possible, this must be balanced against setting contact at a realistic level which is workable for the children in the circumstances of the case.
Related FAQs
It has also been proposed in the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill that public companies who were due to file their accounts in the period from 26 March 2020 to 30 September 2020 will have until the earlier of the 30 September 2020 and the date which is 12 months after the end of their relevant accounting period to do this.
This is separate from the pre-existing scheme, announced on 25 March 2020, whereby companies can apply to Companies House for a 3 month extension for filing their accounts.
Many will have worked collaboratively with their suppliers and customers to deal with the immediate public health crisis. This will have meant offering flexibility as to contractual arrangements, whether in delivery dates, volumes of goods or services supplied, or even in the specification of what has been delivered.
If this is the case, it is important that businesses now do their legal housekeeping and make sure they have a proper record of what has been agreed. Unfortunately, our experience shows that many legal disputes arise out of amendments to contracts, typically where the parties to the contract each have a different view about what exactly they agreed to change.
We would therefore advise businesses to review any amendments that they might have agreed either verbally, by email, or otherwise, and consider whether they need to be captured in a more formal way which will make clear exactly what has been agreed to be varied, and (where appropriate) how long that variation will remain in force.
It’s also important to remember that some contracts contain provisions that set out specific requirements about how amendments are to be made. For example, they might require that amendments are made in writing (rather than verbally). These “No Oral Modification” clauses are commonly found in commercial contracts, and the courts have recently shown that they are willing to enforce them.
Failing to deal with amendments in accordance with contractual requirements could therefore have a serious impact on businesses as they recover from the disruption caused by the lockdown. If they end up in dispute with a customer or supplier, a business could find that the contract has not actually been amended in the way that they think – potentially leading to legal costs and liabilities at the worst possible time.
Yes. It is possible to bring a financial provision claim under the 1975 Act to ask the court to decide that the amount which you would receive under the Intestacy Rules (which apply if the deceased person has no valid Will) do not make reasonable or financial provision for you. Please see below FAQs on financial provision for more information.
The law says that if after assessing a risk and considering all the control measures available to you, you cannot undertake a task safely – then you should not undertake the task.
If that means taking BAME workers out of higher risk frontline work, that is what will have to be done.
Beware of workers saying “we’ll accept the risk” – it does not protect you against regulatory/enforcement action or civil claims.
With the outbreak of coronavirus leading to a requirement for more employees to be working remotely, especially following Government advice that all non-essential travel including to and from work should be avoided, there has been an increased requirement for businesses to be more flexible in their approach to signing contracts.
The traditional approach has been for contracts to be printed and signed with a “wet ink” signature. However, this is not a strict legal requirement in the majority of circumstances and contracts can be formed without this degree of formality. English law recognises that contracts can be formed by electronic means – including the exchange of emails or the typing of a name into a document to signify agreement to it.
Whilst this approach offers a lot of flexibility, more sophisticated electronic signature tools are recommended for important documents, to enable the identity of the signatory to be validated and reduce the possibility of fraud.
If businesses are considering changing their contracting processes because of coronavirus, or because of a general shift towards paperless working, it is important to ensure that proper approval processes remain in place, and to consider whether a software tool should be used to complement them. Systems such as DocuSign are widely used.
There also remain some situations where legal advice is recommended before relying on an electronic signature:
- Where the other party is abroad – as local laws that are different from English law might apply
- If executing a deed – the law requires certain types of document to be executed as a deed (for example, transfers of land and powers of attorney), and the issues around electronic signature and witnessing are more complicated here