[tchillinbama]

I have a 5 yr old son,My husband adopted him 4 yrs ago and his biological father consented to the adoption.Now he is married and wants his rights back.He says the reason he signed the adoption papers was because he was high on drugs and was tricked into signing them.He was very aware of what the papers were and he signed them and paid the notary public to notarize the papers.We went to court without an atty because the judge did not seem to think at that time we would need one.Now we have a new court date and the judge told us to get an atty.So we are paying an atty $2000 to take our case.On the adoption papers it plainly says he had 5 days to contest this adoption.It has now been 4 yrs and i just do not understand why he is getting a chance in court even.And if he was on drugs why did it take him this long to realize that he had made a mistake and did not contact us at all to see my son.When they did call,it was not him,his girlfriend who is now his wife called.I just would like any info that someone might have on a case similiar to this and any opinions on if he even deserves his rights or the title of a dad.My husband has been his DADDY his entire life so why should he have to forfeit his rights now just because the biological father got married and now wants to play daddy?

[tgage]

Well, that's one of the reasons to either have an attorney in the first place or make sure that you do your research before the adoption.

In doing my own step-parent adoption of my 4 kids, most of what I did was to be sure that the bio-dad couldn't come back and contest the adoption.

In my case I had to do a notification by publication and I did it in two newspapers (one in our county and one in his - last known address). I went over and over the possible ways that he could contest the adoption and what I do if he did.

You are doing right in getting an attorney for this up-coming hearing because there are quite a few things that the attorney can do (or try) to cut the bio-dad off even before he gets started. One of those being if he even has standing to bring a hearing before the court.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Tim

[tchillinbama]

we had an atty when we did the adoption and she said he couldnt come bk and conest it since he did consent to it in the beginning but now here we are so this time we are going to try to cut off every link he has ty for your info though it is helpful

[Suzi1972]

Has he already filed or did I miss that? If this goes to court I would definately ask for attorney fees. Likely he will not win as he did consent but more importantly the adoption took place such a long time ago. Not only does his consent hurt his case but what hurts him worse is the length of no contact.