Child Sole Responsibility is an important part for application in connection with the children. Sole Responsibility means that only one parent is solely responsible and are involved in the child's upbringing. Children under the age of 18 years can join their parents in the UK who are the chief decision maker for their child. Certain circumstances can include where other parent has passed away, abdicated or abandoned their parental responsibility. In this blog we will go deep insights into the Child sole responsibility under UK immigration rules
Child Sole Responsibility under the UK immigration rules has been interpreted by the learnedUpper Tier Tribunal where sole responsibility was defined in the case of TD (Paragraph 297(i)(e): “sole responsibility”) Yemen [2006] UKAIT 00049.
The test is, not whether anyone else has day-to-day responsibility, but whether the parent has continuing control and direction of the child’s upbringing including making all the important decisions in the child’s life – if not, responsibility is shared and so not “sole”. Thus, the parent who has the control and direction of the child’s upbringing and makes the all- important decisions in the child’s life is considered to be the parent having sole responsibility.
For Example - one parent is responsible for taking care of their child’s day-to-day life and welfare and taking the child’s life-critical decisions, such as their education, health, financial needs, emotional needs, medical treatment, residence, holidays, religion, and so on. In other words, you are the sole decision-maker in shaping the direction of the child’s future, keeping their best interest in mind. However, this does not mean that your relatives and friends cannot share the child’s responsibility with you.
A child can also qualify to join you as you are solely responsible for him where you and your partner (the other parent of the child) are not married, or your marriage subsists but you do not live together, or where your marriage has been dissolved.
The child must be
You need to note that sole responsibility is different from sole legal custody. You may not be considered solely responsible for the child if any of the following is true:
You need to apply for it when you want your child to live with you while the other parent has died, abandoned or abdicated the child’s responsibility.
The other parent may have died, the court had removed the child’s responsibility from the other parent, or the other parent does not want to take responsibility for the child anymore because
Any of these situations may leave you with no option but to apply for the child’s sole responsibility.
You need to prove that you have been looking after your child for a substantial period. You must show that you had and continue to make major decisions for your child. You had and continue to have care and control for the child.
The Home Office may ask you to produce several documents to prove that you have the sole responsibility for your child. These documents include, but are not limited to:
You must provide documents depending on your circumstances. You may be called for an interview as well. There is nothing to worry about during the interview, as it is a normal process where the Home Office wants to be sure that you are solely responsible for your child. You should be ready with the answers and documents so that your application process does not take too long.
In such a situation where you and your child don’t live together in the same city or country, your child must be living and being taken care of by one of your relatives. If the child is under the care of the relatives of the other parent, you cannot claim sole responsibility.
However, the child being taken care of by your relatives is not sufficient. You still have to show that you have retained the ultimate responsibility for the child’s upbringing. You still take care of majorly or even exclusively the financial and emotional needs of the child.
You must be able to maintain and accommodate the child in the UK, which means your net income should be higher than the amount of income support for the family of same size after the deduction of your housing costs, which include the council tax.
If you cannot show that you have control over your child’s life, you can still apply for your child to live with you in the UK. For this, you must prove that there are compassionate and compelling reasons that make the exclusion of the child from the UK undesirable and that you have made adequate arrangements for the child’s care.
However, this is a discretionary decision based on an assessment of the child’s situation and evidence provided by you to justify your case.
Living with your child is most importantly an emotional decision. If there are circumstances where you are the only parent who is alive or wants to take responsibility for the child, you can apply for the child’s sole responsibility.
However, just being one parent wanting to take care of the child’s life’s various critical decisions is not enough. You need to prove your sole responsibility claim to the officials.
You should seek an expert immigration lawyer’s advice to make your case stronger because it is a complex matter, and taking an expert’s help is in the best interest of the child by contacting Visa and Migration Ltd on 02034111261.
