Hi, my niece in MN has a wonderful 4 year old daughter that she has supported almost entirely on her own. He rarely sees the little girl and then it is only when his parents come and pick her up. Court order, he is not to have her alone because of a history of drug abuse. He called my niece and said that he wanted to sign away his rights. My niece called a lawyer and was told that he couldn't sign his rights away without her being married and her husband adopting her daughter. Is this right? Look at all the single parents out there without even knowing who their father is. If anyone has any advise, please help. Thank you in advance.

Yeah that is right and even if he could sign his rights away he could still most likely be held responsible for child support anyway.

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Originally Posted by lcedge

Hi, my niece in MN has a wonderful 4 year old daughter that she has supported almost entirely on her own. He rarely sees the little girl and then it is only when his parents come and pick her up. Court order, he is not to have her alone because of a history of drug abuse. He called my niece and said that he wanted to sign away his rights. My niece called a lawyer and was told that he couldn't sign his rights away without her being married and her husband adopting her daughter. Is this right? Look at all the single parents out there without even knowing who their father is. If anyone has any advise, please help. Thank you in advance.

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I never second guess what an Attorney in a particular State who specializes in that particular type of law and knows all the circumstances says -

That being said - yes, the Attorney is correct.

And as NoHelp4U said, in some States you CAN sign away your rights but you CANNOT stop child support - if that's his plan. Is your niece collecting support? If not, why? Her child deserves to be financially supported by two parents, not a single mother.

Not knowing your parents and signing off on custody are two different things.

There are states that will not allow it at all, In some states the mother can take away the rights if the father is sentenced to prison for a felony.

But what the father was also wanting most likely was his child support to stop, which will not happen unless the child is adopted by a new partner

He doesn't pay child support and never has. He lives with his parents and won't take a job unless he can get paid in cash so there is no proof of income. Always cheating the system, judge ordered a hair sample for a drug test so he shows up at the clinic bald so they said they couldn't do the test and nothing happened as always.

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Originally Posted by lcedge

He doesn't pay child support and never has. He lives with his parents and won't take a job unless he can get paid in cash so there is no proof of income. Always cheating the system, judge ordered a hair sample for a drug test so he shows up at the clinic bald so they said they couldn't do the test and nothing happened as always.

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Let me put this as delicately as possible - hair on your head is most definitely NOT the only hair that can be tested for drugs. He is not the first nor will he be the last to come up with THIS particular plan to avoid detection.

Do they actually test the "other" hair or just enjoy plucking it out of your hide - I don't know and I don't want to know.

I have to ask here. When you decided to post this question, you started at the home page scrolled down to the Family Law forum and clicked on it. So far so good. At the top of the forum (2nd entry) is a stick note entitled:

Signing over rights ** Read First **

Did you try reading that? The points in that note confirm what the attorney said.

The bottomline here is that a TPR is unlikley to be granted even if both parents want it.