Question about adoption of stepdaughter?

Question

I will tell you my situation and you tell me if you see any roadbumbs. I want to adopt my step-daughter and my wife agrees. We live in California and I am in the marines. The natural father is incarcerated and is in Texas (where we were before I was stationed here). His rights of seeing her switched to his parents when he went to prison (btw his crime was raping his 12 year old neice) We don't think he will sign her over willingly. Before I do this I just want to know if the adoption and termination of rights will go without problems.

Answer 1

any judge in their right mind will relingquish the bio-fathers rights. Is all you're wife has to do is file for full custody proving the bio-father to be unfit.  And sense their is the fear of him possibly rapping his own daughter given the chance and sense he's in prison for doing it to his niece I don't see any major speed bumps in your guys way. Good luck. Make sure you keep documents of everything. From what the bio-father says to his parents to their atterney ect. every phone call, conversation, everything needs to be documented that way if and when you do run into a speed bump those documents may help you out.

Answer 2

My husband is also looking to adopt my daughter. (Her natural father has had no contact with my daughter and has shown no interest in doing so.....hopefully it will go quite easily!)

Your best bet would be to have some papers drawn up about the termination of parenal rights and have a lawyer/paralegal go in and see if he will sign them.  At least then, you know where y'all stand.  Also, you need to find out what rights the grandparents have and find out what y'all need to do so that the grandparents "rights" are not trampled upon.  The last thing you need are some angry grandparents in court as well.  You, or your wife, might want to feel them out about this situation prior to any action so that way they do not feel threatened or get a different story from their son.

If he is not willing to sign over his rights, your only option is to take him to court and petition the court to terminate his right so that you can adopt her.  I seriously doubt that the reason that he is incacerated can be withheld for the judge and will be a key factor in the judge's decision.  Just be prepared for all the "visits" that social services will be making to your house (not much fun, but that is the law).

This may not be a "slam dunk", but stick through it and the rewards will outweigh any of the rough patches.

Good luck!

Answer 3

my son's birthfather (never met him) contested the adoption but he was in prison so the judge denied his right to contest.  I had no trouble adopting him.

Answer 4

Well,  probably, since  the father is not a nice person, he could give you a hard time, but legally, once he went to prison he lost all his rights so, you won´t have big problems there.

The law is on your side here, so you will not have major obstacles.

Your are doing a very good thing, your wife and her daughter are lucky to have you. Good for you!!

Answer 5

If his rights were given to his parents I would expect that as long as they could get visitation of the daughter then they will probably sign.That is if they have any relationship with child as is. My cousin adopted his step daughter and had a similar situation and as long as he agreed to some visitation, then things were okay.  He said he would as long as the child wanted up to 18.

Answer 6

In most states, if the biological is found guilty of a crime against a chlid, that automatically allows for their parental rights to be terminated weather they agree or not.   No judge in their right mind is going to allow a convicted child rapist any access to a child weather it is his or not.  You can always look up on the net the laws and statues in your state.  Most states have them listed.