Blended families are becoming increasingly common, and at the law office of Herbert W. Laine, we have extensive experience helping Virginia families by making their emotional bonds legal and permanent through adoption. A stepparent adoption totally severs the legal relationship between the noncustodial parent and the child.
Our Norfolk Child Adoption Attorney Can Effectively Manage Your Adoption Case
The adoption process can be especially important, because it ensures the child will be eligible to receive any of the stepparent's death or retirement benefits, inheritance and other benefits. Although the vast majority of adoptions involve adults adopting minors, some situations develop where a person over the age of 18 should be adopted. One example is when a parent and stepparent have raised the child up to the age of 18 and they changed the child's name to that of the stepparent, but the child was never legally adopted. In reviewing retirement or death benefits or other entitlements, the stepparent realizes that the child would not be a beneficiary because, according to the law, he or she is not legally bound to the stepparent and would therefore not be covered by the terms of the policy.
Attorney Laine has significant experience and comprehensive knowledge of the Virginia adoption process, and when we are able to secure consent from the noncustodial parent, we can usually complete the process for you within 60 days.
Virginia Adoption Without Consent/Virginia Termination of Parental Rights
In some cases, a noncustodial parent can become estranged from his or her child — geographically, as well as emotionally — due to the cost of travel to visit the child or disinterest in maintaining a relationship.
If the noncustodial parent refuses to or is unavailable to consent to the adoption, a court is still able to grant an adoption. The first step in the process is proving that the noncustodial parent is unavailable or unwilling to give consent.
The Department of Social Services conducts an investigation, and attorney Laine presents evidence in court to demonstrate why the withholding of consent to the adoption is not in the best interests of the child. When making that decision, the court considers factors such as:
- The age of the child
- The birth parent's ability to care for the child
- The effect that a change of custody will have on the child
- The quality of any previous relationship between the birth parent and the child
- The quality of any relationship between the birth parent and any other children
- Whether the birth parent is currently ready and able to assume custody of the child
- The efforts of the birth parent to obtain or maintain legal and physical custody of the child
- Whether the birth parent's efforts to assert parental rights were prevented by other people
In addition to contested adoptions, there can be complicated cases such as the adoption of a child where both parents have died and a relative has assumed child-rearing responsibilities, or when a child has lived with prospective adoptive parents for many years and the birth parents cannot be located.
We encourage you to contact us, so we can arrange a private meeting for you with our Chesapeake stepparent adoption attorney.
