Acknowledgement and parental authority are two different things, and confusing them is the most common source of unpleasant surprises in Dutch family law. Acknowledgement makes you the child’s legal parent. Parental authority gives you the right to take decisions about the child. Until 2023 you could easily have the first without the second.
Acknowledgement: becoming a legal parent
The woman who gives birth is automatically the child’s legal parent. Where she is married or in a registered partnership at the birth, her spouse or partner is generally the second legal parent by operation of law.
Where the parents are not married, the second parent becomes a legal parent by acknowledging the child, at the municipality, with the mother’s written consent. Acknowledgement can take place before the birth, at the birth or afterwards. It establishes a legal family relationship with all that follows from it: a maintenance obligation, inheritance rights, and a family law tie with the parent’s relatives.
What acknowledgement does not do by itself is give you a say in the child’s upbringing.
Parental authority: the right to decide
Parental authority covers decisions about upbringing, schooling, medical treatment, residence and travel, and it includes the administration of the child’s property. Married parents hold it jointly from the birth.
For unmarried parents the position changed on 1 January 2023. Since that date, an unmarried partner who acknowledges a child in principle acquires joint parental authority together with the mother automatically, where previously the parents had to register their joint authority separately in the authority register. The change applies to acknowledgements made from that date; for children acknowledged before it, authority is not acquired retrospectively, and parents in that position who never registered still hold authority with the mother alone.
That transitional point matters, because a parent who assumes the new rule applies to an older child may discover only when a decision has to be taken – a school, a passport, a medical procedure – that he has no authority at all.
How to check and how to arrange it
Whether joint authority exists can be checked in the central authority register. Where it does not exist and both parents want it, they can arrange it by joint request; where one parent refuses, the other can apply to the court, which will grant joint authority unless there is an unacceptable risk that the child would become trapped between the parents.
Why the distinction bites
A parent without authority is still a legal parent: he owes maintenance and the child inherits from him. But he cannot take decisions, cannot consent to medical treatment, cannot apply for a passport, and cannot object to the child moving abroad in the way a parent with authority can. Conversely, contact rights exist independently of authority: a parent without authority still has a right to contact.
Frequently asked questions
Does acknowledgement give me authority?
Since 1 January 2023, in principle yes, where the acknowledgement takes place from that date. For earlier acknowledgements, no – unless authority was separately registered.
Can the mother refuse acknowledgement?
Consent is required, and where it is withheld the court can substitute it on the application of the biological father or the person who acknowledges the role of parent.
Does authority end at eighteen?
Yes, when the child reaches majority. The maintenance obligation continues to the age of twenty-one where the child is not yet financially independent.
Advice
Checking whether authority actually exists takes minutes and prevents a great deal of difficulty later. Our family lawyers advise on acknowledgement, authority and the applications to the court where agreement is not possible. Please contact Law & More.
