Becoming a stepparent can change your life. If you want to bring your blended family together under one legal roof, you may need a stepparent adoption to ensure that all the children you love are yours to protect and provide for. The Michigan family law attorneys at Bebout, Potere, Cox & Bennion, P.C., know how the Michigan stepparent adoption process works and can help you make sure all your children are protected.
Who is Eligible for Stepparent Adoption
A stepparent adoption establishes a legal parent-child relationship between the child and the husband or wife of the child's custodial parent. To file a petition for a stepparent adoption, the child being adopted must either have been born to unmarried parents or his or her parents must be divorced. A non-custodial parent or their spouse cannot file a petition for stepparent adoption.
Why You Should Adopt a Stepchild
There are many rights and responsibilities that come with legal parentage:
- Access to medical, education, therapy, and welfare information about the child
- Obligation to pay child support or provide financially for the child
- Authority to make medical, educational, religious, and welfare decisions for the child (absent a court order to the contrary)
- Right to seek child custody and parenting time to protect the parent-child relationship
- Dependent benefits through welfare, disability, and military benefits awarded to the stepparent
- Inheritance rights for both parent and child through the Michigan probate courts
Without going through an adoption, teachers, doctors, and childcare providers may behave like a stepparent has informal authority to care for a child, but that authority comes from the custodial parent's consent. There is no legal relationship between the stepparent and the child, and courts will not do anything to honor the stepparent/stepchild relationship with two exceptions:
- If the stepparent or stepchild is a named beneficiary in a valid estate plan
- If the stepparent qualifies as an “equitable parent” for custody, parenting time, or support (This is rare.)
However, by drawing a legal connection between stepparent and stepchild, through a stepparent adoption, you remove any chance that the relationship will be discarded by the courts.
Michigan Stepparent Adoption Process
There are several steps to the Michigan adoption process. Here is what to expect:
Home Study
Michigan courts must investigate stepparent adoptions to make sure they are in the child's best interest. To satisfy that requirement, social workers complete a home study to investigate the adoptive family's life by completing:
- Interviews of both the custodial parent and the stepparent
- Home inspection
- Background checks
- Meeting with the child (if old enough)
- Review adoption documentation (discussed below)
In Michigan, if you want a stepparent adoption, you should plan to complete a home study within one year before filing the petition.
Petition for Stepparent Adoption
Once you receive a home study recommending adoption, you can file a petition for stepparent adoption. The petition form provides identification information for the child, parents, and stepparent, as well as any other interested parties. When you file the petition, your attorney will also need to provide documentation, including:
- Birth certificates or records for the parent, stepparent, and child
- Marriage license for the parent and stepparent
- Home study report
- Judgment of divorce (if appropriate)
- Name change orders (if applicable)
- Application fee
Termination of Parental Rights
Before a stepparent can be named the legal parent of the child, the parent's non-custodial parent's rights must be terminated. If the non-custodial parent agrees to the adoption, he or she can sign a parental consent to adoption either in front of the judge or before a witness and with the advice of an independent family lawyer.
However, if the non-custodial parent does not agree to the adoption, you will need to file a motion to terminate his or her parental rights. The Court will only grant that motion if you can prove both of the following were true for the two years immediately before the petition to adopt was filed:
- Failure to provide substantial and regular financial support or failure to comply with a child support order, and
- Regular and substantial failure to visit, contact, or communicate with the child
The petitioners will have to show both that the support and contact did not occur and that the non-custodial parent had the ability to do so. If these two requirements are met, the Court will then consider whether the termination is in the best interest of the child. Involuntary termination of parental rights is the most complicated part of a stepparent adoption, so if you can negotiate consent from the non-custodial parent, you should.
Order of Adoption
After the hearing, if the Michigan family court judge agrees that termination is appropriate and is in the child's best interest, the child will be temporarily placed with the custodial parent and stepparent for 21 days, to give the non-custodial parent an opportunity to appeal the termination of his or her parental rights. Unless an appeal is filed, the Court will then enter an Order of Adoption, and the child will become the legal child of the custodial parent and the stepparent.
Get Help with Stepparent Adoption from a Michigan Family Lawyer
At Bebout, Potere, Cox & Bennion, P.C., we care about you and your family. We help individuals and families in Rochester Hills, Rochester, Troy, Lake Orion, Oxford, Oakland County, Macomb County and throughout Southeast Michigan. We can help you petition for and receive a stepparent adoption, to ensure all your children are legally protected. Call us at 248-651-4114 or contact us here to speak to an attorney.