[nydaddyof15]

my wife has full custody of her twin girls, ages 26 months, their father has not seen them or paid child support for over a year. we now learn he is in japan. our one year anniversary is coming up soon, and we would like to get the ball rolling so i can adopt the girls. will we need his consent since he hasnt been in their lives for over a year, hes overseas, and we dont know how to contact him? how hard will it be for me to adopt the girls? we live in ny btw. any info would be helpful, thanks

[sara29]

You will still have to have his rights taken from him so you will have to make a good effort to find him. He is overseas is he Military? If so it will not be hard to find him.

[kibbygirl]

We just completed a step-father adoption with my ex husband living in Canada. we live in PA where the laws are pretty clear--with no contact in 6 months the courts can terminate parental rights without the parent agreeing. However, you will have to show that you tried to notify him of the proceedings. In some ways, him being out of the country ay be easier.

We ended up using a lawyer--it costed us about 3000.00, but the whole process took only 4 months.

Good luck
Kim

[LadyBugz]

Service must be rendered to the respondent (him). How that is done depends on the laws of the state and the discretion of the judge.

In TPR, the rules are usually stricter than other civil cases. You can search your family law codes for alternative service. You might find things like certified letters, leaving a letter at his address, leaving it at his last known address, leaving it with a third party who there is reason to believe will pass it on (like his parents), putting it in the newspaper, etc.

We had to contact both his parents, several officials whom there was reason to believe would know where he was (for instance, his last lawyer), his last known address, and put it in the paper.