MAKE YOUR FREE Parental Responsibility Agreement

This Parental Responsibility Agreement template:

• allows you, as the father, to have parental responsibility along with your child's mother

• allows you to make certain decisions relating to your child (eg where your child will go to school or what medical treatment is appropriate)

• makes you responsible for providing your child with a home and stating where that should be

• makes you responsible for maintaining, protecting and disciplining your child

• doesn't mean that you have to live with the child or even have contact with them

• does not itself create any financial responsibility (however, as the father, you have financial responsibility as a matter of law)

If you are a parent of another gender or a step-parent and wish to gain parental responsibility for a child, Ask a lawyer for assistance.

Parental responsibility (as defined in the Children Act 1989) means the legal rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority a parent has for a child. A parent with parental responsibility has the right to make decisions about a child's upbringing and care. For more information, read Parental responsibility.

You need a Parental Responsibility Agreement if you are the father of a child and you don’t currently have parental responsibility but want to gain parental responsibility for your child. Obtaining parental responsibility means that you will be involved in decision-making and will be kept up to date about the child's well-being.

By entering into a Parental Responsibility Agreement you have a formal agreement in place, setting out that you, along with your child’s mother, have parental responsibility for your child.

A Parental Responsibility Agreement is legally binding if it is executed (ie signed, witnessed and registered) correctly. For your Parental Responsibility Agreement to be binding, you must sign it in person in front of an officer of the court (eg a Justice of the Peace, a justice’s clerk or someone else who is authorised by a judge to administer oaths). The officer of the court will then sign the Parental Responsibility Agreement as your witness. 

Once signed, the Parental Responsibility Agreement must be registered with the Central Family Court. You must do this by sending two copies of the Parental Responsibility Agreement, along with your child’s birth certificate, to the Central Family Court.  

The court officials will then register the Agreement, stamp both copies and return a copy to each parent. The Parental Responsibility Agreement will only be valid and binding once you have received your stamped copy from the Central Family Court. 

For more information, see the Make it legal checklist.

The address of the Central Family Court is:

First Avenue House

42-49 High Holborn

London

WC1V 6NP 

Before sending the Parental Responsibility Agreement, make sure that you have the correct address.

The most important roles of those with parental responsibility are to provide a home for the child and to protect and maintain the child. However, some other roles include:

• deciding where a child lives

• choosing or agreeing to a child's medical treatment

• choosing and providing for the child's education

• choosing which, if any, religion a child follows

• giving consent for a child to leave the country, whether for a holiday or permanently

Parental responsibility doesn't affect the duty a parent has to maintain their child financially as all parents have this duty, irrespective of whether they have parental responsibility or not.

A child’s birth mother automatically has parental responsibility for the child.

A child’s father usually has parental responsibility if:

• he was married to the child's mother at the time of birth

• he marries the mother after the birth, or

• he registers the birth of the child together with the mother

Same-sex partners will both automatically have parental responsibility if they were married or civil partners at the time of the treatment by which the child was born (eg via donor insemination or fertility treatment). This won’t be the case if the conception was because of sexual intercourse or the biological mother’s spouse/civil partner did not consent to the conception.

For more information, read Parental responsibility.

Biological fathers can get parental responsibility if they weren't married to a child’s mother at the time of the child's birth. Same-sex partners who weren’t married or in a civil partnership at the time of conception can also get parental responsibility. Other people connected to the child (eg step-parents) may also be able to get parental responsibility.

This can be done by entering into a Parental Responsibility Agreement (with the agreement of everyone who already has parental responsibility) or by applying for a court order for parental responsibility if those with parental responsibility (eg the mother) refuse to grant parental responsibility.

For more information, read Parental responsibility.

If parents can't reach an agreement on whether a parent should have parental responsibility, the parent can apply to the court for a court order. The court will decide if it's in the best interests of the child for the parent to have parental responsibility. If the court grants parental responsibility, it will grant a Parental Responsibility Order (PRO). 

For more information on PROs, see Government’s guidance on applying for parental responsibility.

Once registered, a Parental Responsibility Agreement can only end in these circumstances:

• on the child's 18th birthday

• by an order of the court made on the application of any person who has parental responsibility for the child, or

• by an order of the court made on the application of the child with permission from the court

If parents with parental responsibility can't agree on a decision concerning the upbringing of their child, they could use family mediation. If an agreement can't be reached then either person can apply for a Specific Issue Order or a Prohibited Steps Order, although the parent doesn't need to have parental responsibility in order to do this. The court will make a decision based on what's in the best interests of the child.

For more information, read Child custody.