Me and the father to my 2 children have been separated for nearly 3 years now, he has never paid child support and did see the children on and off for a while but more off, for the last 3 and a half months I have heard nothing from him, he doesn't seem to want to see the children anymore, is there anyway I can get him to sign his rights over without his permission or do I have to wait for a certain amount of time?
Any help would be gratefully received!

Why are you not forcing child support, get his drivers license taken away, get him sitting in jail.

And most likely they will not take his rights away, and so what, what will it do for you, he is not seeing them now anyway, that is all it is.

It was only a enquiry! The reason I ask is because I would like to change their surname as they still have his and also I would like my partner to have rights if you see what I mean

Well first of all you need to check the laws where you live... if you are asking about filing abandonment in hopes to have his rights terminated, the length of time is different everywhere. In Ohio, it is a minimum of 6 months with no contact and no child support... both. Then you could file abandonment charges... but that does not automatically get his rights terminated.

Getting a fathers rights terminated is not easy at all.

The father would have to agree to relinquish his rights. If you try and terminate them, he can fight it and he will most likely win.

Even if the father agrees to sign over his rights for adoption, in most cases a 'boyfriend' or even 'fiance' cannot adopt. It would, in most cases, have to be a spouse in which you were married to at least a year.

Ok that's really helpful thanks

No problem... so as you can see, you most likely are not going to be able to terminated his rights.

So I would advise to file for child support asap.