Where would we be without Grandparents ?
60% of childcare provision is provided by grandparents and over one million grandchildren are denied contact with their grandparents?  One in every hundred children is living with a grandparent – that means 2 - 4 children in every primary school year may live with a grandparent.  Grandparents save the economy £4 billion per annum (Age Concern report).  20% of grandparents under 60 are also step-grandparents and the Grandparents Association estimate that there are over 13.5 million grandparents in the UK.

We know grandparents are important for a complete family and specialist legal help could be very useful because whilst Parliament has not placed grandparents in any special category, increasingly today a grandparent’s role in a child’s life is being recognised and valued by society and the courts.

In practical terms a grandparent will usually need initial permission from the court to make their application for contact or residence. 

The court will then apply initial tests to consider what the proposed application for, the grandparent’s actual connection with the child and any risk that the proposed application may disrupt the child’s life.  This is so as to carry out a broad assessment of whether there is a reasonable expectation of success for the application.  If you can demonstrate that your connection with a child is more than simply biological, then you should be able to overcome this initial stage. 

As this is a rapidly developing area of the law, up to date legal advice on the particular circumstances of your own case can make a real difference.