I recently got married and I am looking into adopting my wife's 9 year old son. We have spoken with a lawyer and it's looking pretty expensive and things are pretty tight right now. His bio father is completely out of the picture, but we'll need to find him to release his rights (hopefully there will be no problems). Is it possible to go through this process with minimal attorneys fees?
I'm going through the same thing. The biological in my son's case is a convicted sex offender, long out of the picture, extrememly delinquent on child suppourt, and overall a schmuck who refuses to be served with papers. Yet, none of this makes a difference to the great state of Texas. It is a costly and long process.
Sorry, I don't have any advice. I do have stepchildren though. Mom is in the picture but she's not necessarily what I would call a "good" mom. She gave them up and then decided she wanted them back----of course she got them back. But I got really close with them when she didn't want to have anything to do with them. Anyway, I just wanted to wish you good luck! It takes a special person to be a stepparent Your stepson is very lucky. Hopefully you won't have as hard a time as studogg. Keep us posted.
A friend of mine is an attorney starting up a family law practice in Houston. PM me and I'll give you her contact information.
Thanks ya'll for the serious responses. Yeah, it's a tough process and we expect that his 'father' would rather give up custody than be faced with back support. I'd like to at least get his last name changed to mine before school get s back in. I'm very lucky to have him, he and I get along great and I'm happy to have him for my son. He's already started telling people that he has my last name and I'd like to minimize the trouble that he'll have at school for that because the teacher has to call him by his legal name. I'll keep you posted. bejezuz, I don't know how to PM you, I've never done that before.
Good luck with the costs, firecat. My brother went through the same thing with my nephew, and they had to shell out as well. It's really unfortunate how the system docks people already willing to assume the responsibility (and costs) for a child.
I know the easiest way to make the father give up his rights is to threaten him with missed child support payments. I know its low but it works.
Yeah, we're hoping that we don't have to do any threatening. I think that the guy will probably be relieved to be out of it, but you never know. bejezuz, you can e-mail me your friend's info at thefireants@yahoo.com
I was going to write "yes, it's possible". But then I decided just to write, "yes" because I'm lazy. But I couldn't because Clutch imposed a 5 character minimum, so I wrote "yes!!"
