I chose a special topic for my inaugural blog post. On Valentine’s Day my husband is adopting my bio-son, his stepson, that he has raised since he was 3 years old. On the same day one of my best friends is adopting her stepson. Of course, I am the attorney for both court hearings and I was able to get them scheduled back to back so then afterwards we can all go celebrate the love of families on Valentine’s Day.
A stepchild can be adopted if the noncustodial parent is deceased, or has relinquished their parental rights, or a court as ended the parent-child relationship, or they sign a consent to the adoption.
Here are the general steps to an uncontested stepparent adoption in Colorado:
- Get finger-printed and order a CBI, FBI and TRAILS background check. It costs about $70 for all three background checks. Submit the background checks in that order since they take different times to come back and must be dated no later than 90 days before the Petition for Adoption is filed. People convicted of certain felonies cannot adopt their stepchildren.
- Once the background checks come back, you then file them with the Petition for Adoption with the juvenile Court and pay a $167 filing fee. The custodial (bio) parent needs to sign a consent to the adoption as does the child if they are over 12 years old.
- You’ll need to file a Petition to Terminate the Parent-Child Legal Relationship pursuant to the allowable reasons in Colorado Statute §19-5-101. Some of these reasons point to being clearly unfit to parent. Other reasons are subtler such as not seeing and supporting the child for over a year. If it has not already, paternity will need to be determined. Other documents the court needs are a statement of fees paid for the adoption, and a notice of hearing.
- If you know where the non-custodial parent is, serve them with copies of all the paperwork so far and ask them to sign a consent to the adoption and a waiver and acceptance of service.
In many stepparent adoption cases, the non-custodial parent is practically, completely out of the picture, which can make the step of legally getting them out of the picture the most difficult part of this process. The policy of giving notice to the other party is one of the most important concepts in the law. We do not want people to accidentally give up their parental rights nor do we want people to say notice was inadequate and attempt to undo an adoption later. All efforts should be made to find the noncustodial parent and those efforts need to be documented and shown to the Court. The sheriff’s office near the non-custodial parent’s last known address should be contacted to serve them at that address, even if you know they are not there anymore, this formality needs documented. If personal service fails, then you can ask the judge to order “notice by publication”. This requires publishing a notice of the adoption in a local newspaper for three consecutive weeks. Proof of this publication is legally sufficient notice for a judge to grant the adoption. - The court will set a hearing date. Before the hearing more documents need filed that the judge will finish filing out and sign. These include the Finding of Fact and Decree, the Final Decree of Adoption, and the State Report of Adoption form. This will allow you to eventually get a new birth certificate for your adopted child.
An uncontested adoption hearing is the best court hearing that exists. You will be the happiest people walking into court that day.
For more information see Colorado Revised Statutes §19-5-200.2 through 19-5-216.
My daughter was born on Father’s Day and my husband adopted my son on Valentines’ Day. Those are gifts that cannot be topped!