Legal Question in Family Law in Maryland
Was he legally adopted?
When I was 20 years old, my father and stepmother coerceed me and my then boyfriend into letting them adopt our son, (who was not the child of the man I was married to at that time.) After months gone by, we eventually signed the papers for my parents to adopt our child. My father promised that we would be able to see the child at any time.That was 12 years ago. My father recently past away in November of 1997, We stll have not been able to officially see our son. My exboy friend and I recently compared the singed adoption papers and discovered he nor I, were notified of the adoption proceedings. All we have are two seperate papers that we signed in front of a Notary saying we allow my parents to adopt our son. We were given photocopies of the form we signed with no judges signature, no court seal, and no case number. We are so desperately hoping that there is a possibility that our son was never officially adopted by my parents, and if not, how do we go thru the legal system to find out if hes was adopted. Moreover, if he was adopted by my parents, how do we legally persue our rights (if we do have any legal rights) to get him back, since my father is dead, and our son is now being raised soley by my stepmother?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Parental Rights After Adoption
This response to your posting is not intended to be legal advice or the establishment of an attorney-client relationship. Accurate legal advice can only be given upon a more complete statement of facts than was in your question. Also, in this Office, the attorney-client relationship is only undertaken upon the signing of a written fee agreement.
If you have questions about whether your son's adoption was approved by the court at the time, you should check with the Clerk of the Circuit Court for the jurisdiction in which you believe the adoption took place. If the adoption was approved by the Court, your parental rights in the child were terminated and you have no right to try to get your child back. If there was some procedural defect in the adoption process, you might be able to get it set aside, however, you will have to hire a lawyer to do that. Even if you can get the adoption set aside (so that the Court would still consider you to be the child's "legal" parent, there is no assurance that the Court would not still allow the stepmother to retain custody of your child because he has been with her (and your father) for 12 years.
Good luck!
Adoption or Not?
As I see your question, you do not know if an adoption took place. If so, you do not know if proper procedures were used. If the adoption was never granted by the Circuit Court, or if there was a procedural problem that would allow the adoption to be set aside, I would see your parental rights remaining intact. You will definitely need a lawyer to evaluate the adoption proceeding, if one was held. The issues you present can't be given a clear answer without first determining if an adoption took place and evaluating the procedures used.William B. Bray
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