What is 'shared residence'?

What is 'shared residence'?

Shared residence is an order that states that a child live with two people. This may sound strange, but it's an order that separates the amount of time that a child lives with each of their parents. Shared residence is an order that's becoming increasingly common. When parents used to have disputes about their children on divorce, even after the Children Act came in, it was very rare indeed to have a shared residence order and they would only usually be made where there was a good degree of cooperation between the parents. That's no longer the case. The courts are recognising that giving a residence order to one person allows that person to feel that they're in a position of superiority over the other, and so what's increasingly happening is they're making the shared residence order, so that the stages of the parents is equal, even if the amount of time isn't precisely equal, because it can be quite unequal in certain circumstances. Shared residence is also an order that's used for different types of family relationships. There was a reported decision which actually went to the House of Lords last year, where the court very much approved of a shared residence order being made in favor of lesbian co-parents, so that they each had parental responsibility for the children.