step parent adoption is probably one of
the easiest ways
to adopt a child
usually it happens when there’s a
non-marital child
between two parties and one of the
parents gets married but they’re sharing
the custody of that child with
the other parent
and for some reason you know the other
parent may decide
uh
that they don’t want to pay child
support or they’re incapable of paying
child support and they want to get out
of it
so the only way to get out of paying
child support is if somebody else adopts
your child and agrees to take on that
burden
so a step parent can step up and say i
will adopt your child
and that relieves that person of any
custody responsibilities including
payment of support
i’ve had people who’ve done that too get
out of paying child support the way the
step parent adoption works i i mean
there’s there’s a lot of technical
things
there’s uh
you know that you have to file a
petition you have to search the database
to see if there’s somebody that claims
to be the father or mother of this child
that isn’t being served in this matter
if there’s a criminal history in the
adopting step parents past uh there has
to be an investigation into that and and
generally the child welfare people will
will do um
do some research into a background check
of of this adopting parent
once that’s all done
uh you go into the court with the child
and you prove up your
petition
by stating the facts that uh
i’m the parent i’m the step parent i’m
going to take on the responsibility i
agree that i’m going to pay child pay
and support this child
because if you do get divorced you could
be liable for child support for that
adopted child
so people don’t shouldn’t take that
lightly but it’s a relatively simple and
painless process