[Shafer911]

My fiancé has residential custody of his son. The biological mother of the child would like to consensually terminate parental rights to him. Where do we go to look for this paperwork, short of hiring a lawyer? What paperwork would be needed in order to do this mutually between ourselves? We want this to be as simple and straight forward as possible. Please help!

[snowman]

I've seen do it yourself divorce kits in drug stores or book stores they might have something like that for you're situation but a lawyer should be able to let you know what you could do in you're free 1/2 hr consultation

[ScottGem]

Are you planning on adopting the child? If not, then I see no reason for a formal termination. And generally the courts won't allow it. Relinquishing parental rights is usually done only when the child is being adopted. If the birth mother doesn't want to be a part of his life anymore then she just doesn't do so. No reason to formalize it.

[Fr_Chuck]

Scott is correct, although each court differs from state law to state law, and often from judge to judge within districts as to how judges believe the law should work.

But if the party that has custody is married and the other partner wishes to adopt, then the court will allow formal termination of all rights and OBLIGATIONS. But normally the courts will not allow a person to give up their obigation to pay child support, since at some point in the future,if the custodial parent gets on welfare at some level, the state then has a obligation to attempt to collect for the child to repay the state some of its money.

The non custody parent does not have to ever see the child, and you can't even force them to see the child, but you can not just agree not to have child support done

Do they have a formal child custody agreement in place with the court, if not that needs to be done,