My ex-husband has not seen our son in 4yrs. Last July he stopped paying child support and took off. I know he is in Texas somewhere. His mom says he is willing to sign over his rights so my husband can adopt him and his legal father. What are my steps to go about this?

You cannot force someone to give up his rights. You can attempt to enforce the support order.

If you cannot locate the father petition the Court to serve him by publication.

I am not trying to force him. According to his mom he wants to sign his rights over and does not want anything to do with our son. She told me if we get the paper work all together that he will sign. I just needed to know how to go about it? And do I have to have an attorney if he is agreeing to sign the papers?

I have no idea why ANYONE would go into an adoption without a lawyer.

Get a lawyer and follow his or her directions on how to go forward with a step-parent adoption and how to either find or serve by publication your ex.

If you do NOT do adoption EXACTLY correctly, it can be overturned at a later date.

What Synnen said. The only way his signing over his rights will be accepted is as part of the adoption process. So it all has to be tied together. And you really need a lawyer to make sure everything is done properly and legally.

Agree with everyone else - he has to sign the paperwork in the format your State uses. You need to start an adoption proceeding and then get his NOTARIZED signature.

I also agree - if it's not done 100% correctly it can backfire at some point in time.

There is no real "fill in the blank" on this, the paper work to sign over his rights will be part of the application for adoption that will be filed, This is very complicated and you should have an attorney