Descent and authority

If the parents are married, the married father automatically becomes the legal father. If the parents are not married, the father will have to acknowledge the child to become the legal father. During a marriage, parents automatically have joint custody of their children. This means that they will make decisions about important matters together. Think of choosing a school or medical treatment.

While married parents automatically have joint authority, this does not apply to cohabiting parents. In that case, only the mother has authority by operation of law. If they want joint authority, they will have to request forms for this, fill them in and send them to the Central Authority Register. If that form is then registered in the Central Authority Register, the unmarried parents exercise authority together. In practice, it often happens that parents forget to carry out these formalities, which can lead to a conflict at the end of the relationship.

Children are sometimes also raised by multiple parents/guardians, for example by two mothers (“duo motherhood”) or two fathers. We also provide the legal recording of the rights and obligations of these parents. Nynke van der Storm, specializes in these types of cases, including surrogacy. We also assist people who want to adopt a child and international child abductions also occur regularly. We have a number of specialists in-house for this, who have extensive experience with these types of cases.