Step parent adoption

[Usernameinvalid16]

Hello. I was looking for some advice with a step parent adoption. We are in Scotland.

My partner wishes to adopt my DD8. Her biological father is not on her birth certificate and has had no contact with her since she was 2.

However, he recently got into contact through a lawyer and wishes to have contact again and is taking the matter to court. Would this impact the adoption procedures when we start them? I know we have to continue the court case legally until we have officially started our adoption procedure.

If anyone could help us out with the length of time the adoption could take and what steps we need to take that would be greatly appreciated.

Have you ever been married to your child’s biological dad? If not he doesn’t have parental rights and doesn’t need to consent to the adoption.

You should proceed with your adoption application, to do this you’ll need to notify your local council that you intend to adopt and appoint a solicitor to act on your behalf. The court can’t consider a petition to adopt until at least 3 months after you’ve notified the local authority so do that first. The adoption team will allocate a social worker to prepare a report for court - this is usually a shortened form of the process adopters go through rather than a full adoption assessment. In that process they’ll explore the situation with your child’s biological dad. His seeking contact shouldn’t stop the adoption process, they can run concurrently.

I’m assuming he’s looking for contact rather than seeking parental rights, which is a separate legal process which would likely impact the adoption process in that the court will want to establish his rights before then looking at introducing another set of parental rights through adoption.

If you were married at any point eg at conception or subsequently, he will have parental rights and will need to agree to any adoption.

No we were never married.

Yes he is looking for contact. I offered contact in a contact centre initially but he took the matter further.

Might be slightly different but when we adopted our youngest her birth parents wanted her to stay in foster care so they could see her regularly. The court ruled that she should be adopted but birth parents could have visiting rights three times a year. We were a bit worried but in all honesty it worked out well and we have become good friends and see them more often.

my partner applied to adopt my son in2020 we have final court hearing in march 2023 hope this help and good luck 😊

@Jellycatspyjamas if the birth father can prove through DNA he is the child’s father then he can apply to the courts for parental rights and therefore oppose the adoption. It would be up then to the judge to decide what was in the best interest of the child.

@Thepinklady77 yes, I’m aware of that, thanks. I did say if he was looking to establish parental rights rather than merely agreeing contact the process would be different.

This is an older posy. In addition, the op had a second thread going elsewhere at the same time which gave a very different picture of the situation.
Adoption was being very much driven by the partner. The OP stated that she was not yet ready to marry her partner but appeared to be happy to give him legal rights over her child.
I'm afraid the whole situation sounded very off.

A step-parent cannot adopt their partners child unless the biological father consents.

As biodad wishes contact with his child, it seems very unlikely he will agree to adoption.

The fact Biodad is not on the birth certificate is irrelevent; he can prove paternity by DNA tests.