ARKrights Solicitors

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We are proud to announce that we have opening 2 new office in Harrow and Ealing, check the website for the full address and contact details.

Regards

Watford team

The Family Team has assisted many client’s recently achieve their desired outcome – whether it is a Supervision Order, Residence or a favourable financial settlement within divorce. Some of our more notable cases are set out below; they have been anonymised to retain the confidentiality of our client’s.

Homosexual Couple and Adoption

In this very interesting case, the above couple were foster carers for the Local Authority. It appeared to them that it was the Local Authority’s plan to allow their foster child (X) to remain with them following the making of Care and Placement Orders. The Local Authority however, later indicated that this was no longer their intention as X had 2 siblings who had been adopted previously and they wished to place the child with their carer (referred to as adoptive mother herein). Assessments conducted on both the foster carers and the adoptive mother were very positive and the Local Authority decided to support the adoptive mother in this instance. The facts of this case were unusual in that the child had not met her siblings and indeed had no knowledge that she even existed – proceedings with respect to them concluded many years ago. The placement was the only home that the child had known and for this reason, the foster carers were both granted a Special Guardianship Order for the child.

Removal from the Jurisdiction

Again, a very unusual and interesting case within which we acted for the Maternal Grandmother and Father who both felt that Mother was not able to care for the child (again, referred to as X). The Mother had attempted to commit suicide on 3 occasions recently and it was thought that she had a problem with drink and drugs. The family had been known to the Local Authority for some time and the Local Authority had severe concerns as the child X suffered from selective mutism, meaning that she only spoke to some individuals and her condition was so severe that she did not speak at school or in public generally. The Local Authority were concerned that this was due to a trauma that she had suffered.

Both Maternal Grandmother and Father were from Australia. The Mother and child resided in this Country.  

Following the Mother’s suicide attempts, the Maternal Grandmother travelled from Australia to care for her granddaughter and daughter. It was agreed with the Local Authority that she would not allow the child alone with the mother for any period whatsoever. This agreement worked for a few weeks until the Mother attacked the Maternal Grandmother causing her to flee her daughters home and reside temporarily with her sister.

This triggered the Maternal Grandmother’s applications to the Court for emergency injunctive relief to prevent her daughter from using or threatening violence against her. She also sought for her granddaughter to be placed with her and permission for her to leave the jurisdiction with her granddaughter, which was supported by the Local Authority.

Upon hearing of these applications, the Father travelled from Australia also and joined the Maternal Grandmother’s application. They were both granted permission to remove the child temporarily whilst investigations were conducted in Australia. Extensive contact was agreed for Mother in the interim which included the Father paying for Mother to travel to Australia to visit her daughter; all of which he happily agreed.

Prior to the final hearing, it was recorded that the child was doing brilliantly in Australia – she began to speak to school staff and other pupils almost immediately. It was noted also that she appeared to have a very good relationship with her paternal and maternal family and met with them all regularly, which was promoted by Father and Maternal Grandmother. The Mother on the other hand ceased to engage in proceedings completely and did not seek to establish any form of contact with her daughter.

The inevitable conclusion of this case was that Father and Maternal Grandmother were granted a Residence Order for the child and leave to remove her permanently from the jurisdiction.

Family, Housing and Fraud

Again, very unusual and interesting indeed. Our client lived alone and in 2006 she started to experience problems paying her bills … etc. She had a very good relationship with her niece at the time, who agreed to assist her with her finances on the condition that the property is transferred to her at a later date. Both parties said that they would consider this and in 2007 an agreement broadly in the above terms was agreed.

It was later found that in 2006, one year before the above agreement, that our client’s niece had fraudulently transferred the property to her name and also obtained a secure charge (mortgage) against it. In 2011, the client received a letter from her niece and having received no monies whatsoever from her niece as per the above agreement, saying that the mortgage is in arrears due to her non-payment and that possession proceedings are to be initiated shortly.

Soon after this matter was investigated by the police who we believe have now charged her with Fraud.

This case is very unfortunate as it now involves the client needing to defend proceedings for possession of her home and bring an action to retain the legal and beneficial interest in her home.  This case is still ongoing …

Supervision Orders

We have recently assisted 3 happy families retain their children in their care and the Local Authority agreeing to seek Supervision Orders only. As you can appreciate, they were delighted, as were we.