Wirth Law Office Has Helped With Many Stepparent Adoptions
Video Transcribed:
The benefits of adult adoption for a stepparent adoption. I’m Tulsa Adoption Attorney, James Wirth, and our topic is related to adult adoptions in Oklahoma and how it may be beneficial to wait and do an adult adoption to work as a stepparent adoption.
At my office, we’ve done a lot of adoptions over the years. Many of those have been stepparent adoptions. Sometimes the children are older, and there are some differences between stepparent adoption and doing that as an adult.
Primarily, it has to do with the requirements. Once the child who adopted turns into an adult, emancipates, turns 18, the requirements under the law then go to doing an adult adoption, which has many fewer hoops to jump through.
The statute that we’re talking about for an adult adoption is Title 10, 7507-1.1. One of the things in there that it notes is that “A petition,” therefore meaning a petition for adult adoption, “the provisions of Section 9 through 36 of this act do not apply.”
So for a regular adoption, you’ve got all these requirements in Sections 9 through 36 that apply, that can include notice requirements, home studies, and many more things. When it’s an adult adoption, those requirements go out the window. You do not have to fulfill those.
So at my office, if we’re looking at doing an adoption over our stepparent adoption, where the child to be adopted is very close to 18, we talk about the options of maybe waiting till the child ages out at 18 and then doing an adult adoption where we don’t have to give notice and opportunity to object to the biological parent.
There’s a lot of other requirements that aren’t required. The home study’s not required as well, so it can be a lot easier, a lot faster, and a lot less acrimony, where you don’t have the other party, the other parent objecting, and have to go through contested hearings. So that’s always an option we look into if the child is close to aging out because it is a simpler process.
When you need a Tulsa Oklahoma Adoption Attorney, you’re going to want to talk to an Oklahoma Adoption Attorney about your stepparent adoption, to schedule an appointment for that, you can go to wirthlawoffice.com
