Legal Question in Family Law in Maryland
Step parent adoption
My step son has lived with us since he was 2. He has just now turned 4. The child's mother has had nothing to do with him since my husband obtained custody. She has not paid, contacted, or seen him. He doesn't even know who she is. I saw a law where if a child has been out of the parents custody for at least 6 months and has had no contact for 1 yr, we could file to terminate the parents rights? Is this true and what would the court look at when determining if we could terminate her parental rights. PS. the NCP moves quite frequently and when we try to contact her she has moved and we can't find her. She never lets us know of here whereabouts, thus making it impossible to even try to get her to have a relationship with her son.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Step parent adoption
You can file your petition, and you can also seek adoption if you wish to do so. You will have to satisfy the court requirements for notifying the mother of your action so she has a fair chance to object if she wishes to do so. This will probably involve serving the papers on her at her last known address, publishing a newspaper notice, and possibly making some attempt at obtaining her new address. You presumably have or can get her ssn, and there are a number of search engines available on the net for this.
To get the court to grant your petition, you will have to establish that it is in the child's interest to do this, but you seem to have a good case for that. Bear in mind that courts are reluctant to terminate parental rights over the objection of the parent, so if she objects you may not be successful.
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