Biological father consents. What next?

[plmbr1442]

I live in California. For about 5 years I've been trying to adopt my step-daughter. The biological father has finally started paying child support after we contacted the D.A. and filed papers. He's in arrears and enormous amount and has an order to pay it off. He now is consenting to signing papers so I can adopt her. We think he just wants to make a deal so he won't have to pay the money. What do we have to do if he is willing to consent? Is it as easy as signing a piece of paper on his part? And also, we don't want to make any kind of deal, and even if we did, the payment in arrears is a court order. I do realize that present child support payments would stop, but what happens to the support in arrears? Any and all info would be very helpful. Thankyou for you time.

 

[MySonsMom]

It would be best in your situation to retain an attorney to help you with this. What will happen is the arreages will have to be paid from him IF he doesn't have a stipuation in the adoption that he will be relieved from it in order for the adoption to go through. If he isn't smart enough, or doesn't have the right info and doesn't say anything he will still be liable for the arrearages after the adoption is final. But only the back support, no current support. Your attorney will serve him with the appropriate paperwork to relinguish his rights in order for the adoption to take place. Then you take it to a judge, and he signs it off and you have yourself a child.

Don't make a deal unless he requests it in order for the adoption to continue. If he requests that he need to be relieved of past support, then you guys will have to decide if the adoption is worth the $X amount of dollars that he owes. In most cases, the loss of money is well worth the adption.

Good luck!