Children''s Passports

Hi All,

I was wondering if anyone would know an answer to this question:
Which parent should hold children''s passports?
Parents are divorced and the children live with their Mum, Dad has the children for 31% of the time. Both share parental responsibility and there in no residence order, therefore they both need to seek the other party''s consent before removing the children from the jurisdiction. Mum has a Prohibited Steps Order against her, due to her threats to remove the children permanently. When it comes to passports, who holds them? Children have both two sets of passports - British and foreign (their Mum''s country). Third party wouldn''t work, no way they would agree on it.
Have a nice day everyone

Sounds like an exam question!

As Mum is a flight risk and has a PSO preventing her from removing the children from the jurisdiction, then she probably isn''t the best person to hold the passports. Usually I would suggest that a neutral third party such as a solicitor keeps hold of the passports until such time as there is a valid reason for releasing them to either parent.

I don''t think there is a right answer to this as ultimately, the passports are the property of the children / government, depending on how you look at it!
My husband is the nrp and his children spend around one third of the year with us but we hold their passports. This is because we wanted to take them abroad and we paid for their passports to be renewed, with these beng sent directly to our address. Mum did try to hijack that as she was asked to write a letter confirming that the she was happy for dad to apply for th passports (very annoying, but the original passports had been issued under her authorisation) and she made the point several times in the letter that she was the resident parent (although no residence order in place), stating her home address at least twice. However, passports were sent straight to the address they were applied from.
If mum takes them abroad, we will happily hand them over but until then they will stay with us.

happyagain wrote:

I don''t think there is a right answer to this as ultimately, the passports are the property of the children / government, depending on how you look at it!

There is a right answer and Rubytuesday gave it! Passports are the property of the Home Office, however you look at it.

Thank you for your response, really appreciate it!

I am aware that there is no right or wrong answer - I am not asking who owns the passports, or who do they belong to, as I am aware it''s the Home Office. I am just asking who should hold them on behalf of children younger than 16. The reality is, that if the parents cannot agree, and cannot nominate a third party, they may have to argue over it and every time one parent takes the children abroad, they can simply not return the passports to the other parent, until such time the other parent wants to take the children abroad too, and so on? It would not be illegal or in breach of any Order. Or is there such thing as Specific Issue Order to prevent it? But then again, isn''t this a really small issue to put it in the front of Judge?
Have you noticed how small things suddenly become massive when it comes to communicating with an ex partner?

If parents cannot agree the courts can grant a SIO stating the passport is to be held by a solicitor and stipulating conditions for for handing them over.

Since children are dual nationals could you not agree to hold a set each?

Father keeps British ones.

Mother keeps whatever foreign country the are a citizen of.