Timescales from adoption order to actual hearing

[fashiongirl2014]

Hi everyone,

I just wondered how long in your experience you had to wait between filing the paperwork for the adoption order until you actually got to go to court for your celebration hearing? (receiving new birth cert etc)

Our SW, also know as misery personified , reckons we could be waiting a year after the paperwork is submitted! Does this seem right? I was so shocked and had hoped that it would be much shorter than this.

DH and I were wondering if you chose to go to a 'quiet' court out of area this may help?

Totally clueless on this so any pointers would be so gratefully received.

We were told if we put ours in at the end of April, it would be in court around July/august

I am a birth parent. The forms were submitted by march 17th and I am expecting to hear from the court in 4 to 6 weeks from then. Though ours was a principle registry of the family division so I know takes slightly longer as they deal with more complex cases as well as divorces and probate.

Hi

We applied in September last year and we had our final hearing in November. Celebration Hearing at the end of January. Birth certs came through a couple of months later.

Papers put in at the start of Feb, first hearing start of March, final and celebratory beginning of April. Depends how busy the court is though from what I've heard!

9 weeks exactly, for us :)

My sw took all my forms and submitted them with her paperwork. That was three weeks ago and I've not heard a dicky bird. I notice the massive fee for applying has hit my bank account though. Bloody system.

Sorry. I'm in a grumbly mood.

I'm glad you started this thread, op. I've been wondering the same thing.

Couple of months here too. Our SW rang around a few courts to see where had a short waiting list

Hi Crazeekitty

Are you with a LA? They should reumburse your Adoption Order fee ours certainly did. This took rather longer to come through!

3 Months here

I've been warned it may go to court and the court will have to trace my ex as everything ss have sent has come back as no longer living there and I don't have hs address and the court have to be satisfied that he knew of the hearing.

For me that's just dragging out the pain tbh. I don't have his address though as far as I know he lives in the same area as before but no guarantee.

I have given them the last number he messaged me from but that was last September before the harrassment order and he changes numbers more often than he changes his underwear

I'm sorry Miracle

Sadly it is necessary - the high court actually overturned an adoption order in 2011 because the birth mum hadn't known about the final hearing because of an address mistake

OP - you won't receive the adoption certificate (which replaces the long form birth certificate) automatically, you apply for it yourself. Which you can do after they send you the new short form birth certificate in the post automatically, which will be a few weeks after the adoption order is granted in court. For me, celebration hearing for DS was a couple weeks after the order was granted, the short form BC arrived in the post a few weeks after that.

From applying to court it was a few months for all my children (2 months for DS I think, longer for the others)

I checked, it was 2 months and 3 weeks for DS, which was IMHO pretty quick

Girls adoptions were more like 4 months

Thank you for suggesting it but I've checked and I don't get reimbursed for the fee. Why can't these things be consistent between authorities?

I can feel another grumble about the system coming on.

Do you even get an acknowledgement that it is being processed or does an invite to the celebration hearing arrive out of the blue?

Okey dokes so quite a range of time frames but there seems to be trend for at least 3/4 months. The problem we have had the whole way through this process is the fact that we can never get a straight answer from our SW's (we've had 2 so far). We asked for a list of key steps of the whole adoption process so we could better understand where we were at various stages...two years later we still don't have a list and 'surprises' come up at every meeting!

Thanks Lilka for the clarification on the certificates that are issued and when, this was something else that we have asked SW but no answer has materialised.

fashiongirl its not just you that doesnt get a straight answers. Nor do I. I also seem to have difficult questions avoided but easy ones answered.

I do understand it's important that my ex is aware but I feel it's his responsibility to notify ss of a change of address. (i did within 36 hours of moving) I also feel sad that because my ex doesn't keep in touch he will eventually lose all contact with our ds

fashiongirl I wrote a blog post about the certificates, it's here, that might be helpful. Sorry for length and if there's anything confusing in there, please ask if that's the case

Lilka thank you!