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Show Question of adoption without consent is d common one I have a divorced client whose ex-wife took his children out of the i state and didn't teU him where they were. After several months of. - fruitless searching, my client asked me in desperation whether his ex- -, wife could use this ploy to have her current husband adopt the , children without his consent "I've heard that if you don't pay child support for six months, then the adoption can go through whether I want it or not," he told me frantically, "and how can I pay support? I don't know where they : The question of adoption without consent is a common one, and it ' is important to know the answer in order to avoid expensive litigation' j in this area. , Under Utah law, a child can be adopted without the consent of the natural parent if that natural parent has made "no effort or only a ' token effort to maintain a relationship with the child." If there has ; been no support or communication with the child for over a year, then there is a presumption that no effort has been made to maintain a ! relationship with the child. ; . ' ' ; ; The presumption, however, is "rebuttable." There have been i several cases decided by ibc Utah Supreme Court dealing with borderline situations where a parent maintained little or no contact ; and no support for several years. In those cases, the natural parents - usually pointed out ill-healA and inability to pay support or afford visitation as reasons for the lack of contact Where a parent has paid no support, and had no contact with the child, the answer is easy- ; adoption is allowed without the natural parent's consent i . , When a parent has sent minimal amounts of money, a Christmas ! card, and has made only sporadic visits to the child, the courts have : L sometimes allowed the adoption, and sometimes denied it A trial , ' - ' s ;- - : '.." '! . '-. a, .".'ri' - v " ; "":',- -;- -'V .. ' v-'-:" V. ' . ; ' judge is given quite a bit of latitude in deciding whether to allow the adoption or not and usually the judge wants to give a parent the benefit of the doubt before allowing an adoption which will per-- per-- manentiy terminate his parental rights towards the child. - , - The lesson to be learned from this is obvious. Parents who don't want to lose their parental rights must maintain contact with their ' children, or must support the children if visitation is impossible. A ' ' parent who has been deprived of visitation by a vindictive ex-spouse , win not be deprived of parental rights so long as he or she is paying , support and is making reasonable attempts to enforce visitation. ' Occasionally a parent is totally deprived of contact with a child because the ex-spouse has disappeared. A new law passed by the Utah legislature this year will alleviate this situation somewhat; if a 7 non-custodial parent is paying support through social services, and if. there are no allegations of child abuse filed in the divorce proceedings pro-ceedings or afterwards, then social services must reveal to the non-' custodial parent the address of the child for whom support is paid, r For those parents who are not paying support through social services, ser-vices, and who don't know the location of their children, one solution ' t is to follow the child's school records. Another solution is to hire a skip tracer. Until the child is located, a trust account for child support ' should be maintained by the non-custodial parent ' ' . ' ' Adoption without the consent of the non-custodial parent can be a good solution where a non-custodial parent has abandoned the children, and a step parent is eser to legally assume parental respon- . sibilities. This same type of adoption can cause serious problems for . the uncommitted non-custodial parent who does not want to lose his parental rights. , . . - |
