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Curiousmommy · Oct 7, 2008, 01:32 PM

I have a 7 yr old daughter. The bio father is not in her life and never has been. Her birth certificate only lists myself and is blank where the fathers name should be. She has my last name. However I recently got married for the first time and have changed my last name. My husband wants to adopt her and of course we want her last name to match ours, how do I do all of this? Is it complicated? I want to avoid dealing w/ the bio father if possible.. especially because he has no rights and doesn't want any rights. I live in Washington state. Any help?

div2wice · Oct 7, 2008, 08:12 PM

I can totally relate... unfortunately, if the biological father has not yet signed over his parental rights, he DOES have rights to the child.
The only way for your husband to be able to adopt the child is if you contact the biological father and ask him to sign over his parental rights. If he does this, then your husband is free to file for adoption. If not, then unfortunately (to the best of my knowledge) there is no way for him to adopt her.
Its best to just contact him, get him to sign (since you said he doesn't want to be her father) and then go from there.
Best of luck,

piolinusa19 · Sep 15, 2011, 06:23 AM

My husband and I been together for 2 1/2 years. I have a 6 1/2 year old girl. My daughter loves a my husband as her own father because that's all she knows. In the birth cerificate the father is "unknown". The bio father has never been in the pic. He left me once he find out I was pregnant and I raise her all by myself. She has my last name so he has not rights over her. So my question is how easy can the process be for us?

piolinusa19 · Sep 15, 2011, 06:30 AM

I believe that you have to post an ad in the newspaper and the bio father has certain days to show up and claim his rights or not, after certain amount of time if he failed to show up then the judge would take it as an "abandonment" and you and your husband show be good to go! If you failed to tell the judge who the bio father is and later on in life he comes back in the picture than the adoption could be revoked and he can claim his rights back because the adoption would be consider as "fraud".

tickle · Sep 15, 2011, 08:51 AM

Actually yes he does have rights even though he is not on the birth certificate; he is your child's fatheer nonetheless. He still has to sign off his rights to his daughter to pave the way for her to be adopted by your present husband. He will have to be found for this and I suggest you hire an attorney to assist you with the adoption process.

Tick

ScottGem · Sep 15, 2011, 09:29 AM

Originally Posted by piolinusa19

She has my last name so he has not rights over her.

This is not true. The father always has rights until and unless a court takes those rights away. The difference in a case like yours is that the father has to consciously exercise his rights. This means he has to go to court to enforce his rights.

Originally Posted by piolinusa19

So my question is how easy can the process be for us?

Actually, you have made it more difficult. The courts will require that you identify the father and make every effort to get him to agree to the adoption. This means, that if he denies paternity, you will have to have a paternity test done. You will then need to get him to agree to the adoption. At the least you will have to show a good faith effort to get his agreement.

You NEED an attorney to prepare the adoption petition to make sure its done properly. Your attorney will explain what you need to do to get the courts to approve the adoption.

Fr_Chuck · Sep 15, 2011, 09:46 AM

I have merged your various posts into one on the Legal boards.

Next for posters who "don't know or "think" we do thank you but giving poor and wrong legal info can hurt seriously if they try to follow it. No you can't just post it in the newspaper, the newspaper posting is only if she does not know where he is at and used as a form of legal notice. It is normally very costly to do it this way over finding the bio father and having him sign over his rights.

The issue here is that there is no easy way, and since he is not on the birth certificate you will also have to prove paternity for him to sign his rights over ( and yes he has lots of rights still but will have to file in court for them)

So you will need to hire an attorney, they will send legal notice to the bio father that the step father wants to adopt and you need him to sign over a release to sign over his rights to allow the adoption

The only trouble here is that he has no reason to do it for you unless he just wants to be a nice guy. You are not forcing him to pay child support or anything. Since this is a motivation for many men, to get out of paying.

If you have lost track of him, certain requirements to search for him will be required, and if not found, legal posting will be done. If you don't know where he is, it starts costing more fast.