When I 'adopted' my daughter I was told by DHS that i was to young to adopt her even though I had full consent by her birth parents and she had been in my full time care for 12 months before we looked into the legalities of it all (and her birth parents decided it was the best for her needs to be with me).
In the end we just went through family courts and I gained fulltime custody of her (with part of the custody order being that I could change her surname to mine. The only diference between adoption and the arrangement I have is her birth cert does not have my name on it, which in our curcumstances is not an issue (she was 8yrs when it all happened so she knows what happened).
If you are considering taking on someone's child whom you know (and there isnt DHS involvement) then that is the cheapest way to gain legal rights of the child. Only thing is you need to have both birth parents approval or if they dont respond to the application the courts may approve it anyway.
Hope this info is helpful to someone (and makes sense)
Is he adopting him to change his surname legally or are there other reasons?
My DD has been known by my DH's surname since she was 7 but legally got a birth cert in that name when she was 16, we had to go to court but it was very easy and since we don't know where XH is he didn't have anything to do with it.
Hope i didn't offend you in any way, my DH is DD's "dad" too, its what they do not just the donation of sperm I think.
I can understand the safety aspect, I lived in fear for years about the X turing up (he left when DD was 2 and we haven't seen him since) It has taken me many years to calm down and even feel brave enough to visit the state his family live in.
I would go and talk to the registrar of the local court, ours helped me heaps with DDs name change.
Registered User
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks