My wife and I have been married for a year and I would like to adopt her seven year old daughter. We have been together for four years and four months and her ex-husband has not really been involved. He lives somewhere out of state and the last time he had contact with his daughter was five years ago on the telephone. Financial support had been sporadic and then ceased. The last time that he made any attempt at supporting her was three years and four months ago when he did send some money. There has been no contact and no money for years, so he has been basically out of the picture for some time.
The information that we found online said that our first step toward adoption should be to visit the court clerk at our local courthouse. The clerk told us that they did not have any paperwork for adoptions and that the Washington Courts website did not have any printable forms for adoption either. She checked with someone there who handled adoption filings, and they couldn't tell us where to get the forms. Eventually they pulled a previous file to see where the paperwork came from. They gave us the name of a website where you can print forms to use in your adoption filing, but it does cost quite a bit of money.
We began to scour the internet looking for any forms relevant to adoption in Washington State. We found printable adoption forms for many other states for free, but we still haven't found any forms relating to stepparent adoption in our state. Are there universal forms that we could use in our state, or are any of these other forms accepted in Washington? Where can I find out what will be required? Is there a way that we can do this without spending a great amount of money?
I realize that for me to adopt her daughter the ex-husband would have to give up his parental rights and that we would have to contact him to get his consent to the adoption. The problem that we face is that we don't currently know where he lives. What steps do we need to take in finding him? Would a newspaper advertisement in his last known city of residence suffice? How do we document our efforts for the court? Is it possible that the court might say at some point that he has abandoned his child and has forfeited his parental rights?
Also, I would be curious to know of any other issues that we might need to be aware of. Are there other problems that people in this situation commonly face? What do we need to watch out for?
Thanks in advance for any help.
The information that we found online said that our first step toward adoption should be to visit the court clerk at our local courthouse. The clerk told us that they did not have any paperwork for adoptions and that the Washington Courts website did not have any printable forms for adoption either. She checked with someone there who handled adoption filings, and they couldn't tell us where to get the forms. Eventually they pulled a previous file to see where the paperwork came from. They gave us the name of a website where you can print forms to use in your adoption filing, but it does cost quite a bit of money.
We began to scour the internet looking for any forms relevant to adoption in Washington State. We found printable adoption forms for many other states for free, but we still haven't found any forms relating to stepparent adoption in our state. Are there universal forms that we could use in our state, or are any of these other forms accepted in Washington? Where can I find out what will be required? Is there a way that we can do this without spending a great amount of money?
I realize that for me to adopt her daughter the ex-husband would have to give up his parental rights and that we would have to contact him to get his consent to the adoption. The problem that we face is that we don't currently know where he lives. What steps do we need to take in finding him? Would a newspaper advertisement in his last known city of residence suffice? How do we document our efforts for the court? Is it possible that the court might say at some point that he has abandoned his child and has forfeited his parental rights?
Also, I would be curious to know of any other issues that we might need to be aware of. Are there other problems that people in this situation commonly face? What do we need to watch out for?
Thanks in advance for any help.