Stepparent adoption birth parent trying to vacate adoption

What is the name of your state? Washington

Here is the story the ex-husand had custody of children on paper while mother went into the military for boot camp and training school ( 5 months long) Mother returned and collected children and moved to Washington state . 8 months later ex-husband is requesting visitation with children, but did not provide transportation, children remained with mother. EX filed contempt charges and mother was found in contempt. No follow-up was filed. Mother proceed with adoption proceedings and ex was well aware of situation. Mother and new Father sucessfully adopted children. Now ex is trying to challenge the adoption,6 months after the 30 day grace period for the appeal.

Question:

Does the contempt charge give grounds for the adoption to be nullified?

Was the father served with notice of the adoption process?

Step parent Adoption

Yes father was furnished with all paper work, notices and even spoke to our lawyer, but did not follow proper procedure to fight the adoption. Father's rights were terminated and adoption proceeded. Father did not communicate with the courts trying to stop the adoption. All procedures were followed acording the Washington state RCW(revised code of washington) regulations.

Then he's SOL

Wow

Even though mother had or has comtempt charges against her in PA and on paper father had primary physical custody of children. Because he was properly served with the adoption paper work he's SOL?

I learned from experience that even though the papers given to father say 30 days an adoption can still be contested up to a year from the time of the adoption... however, contesting and being sucessful are two very different things. With the facts of this case I agree with BB. Dad knew of the adoption and had the opportunity to show up in court and contest the adoption and did not do so. Odds are even if he hadn't done the proper filing, but showed up in court, or contacted the court house involved he would of been given ample advice or at least the chance to say his peace. Judges don't lightly take away parental rights.

As far as the custody on paper, it depends on what those papers say, however, it still goes back to Dad was contacted (which I'm sure can be proven), Dad did respond in some way even if it wasn't the proper legal way, proving he did know that the adoption had been filed. How much contact did Dad have with children(telephone, mail, phyical) before the filing of the adoption and in the six months since.. how much effort has been made... The adoption has been finalized and it will be harder to vacate it NOW then it would of been to contest it in the first place.

Thank You

Thank you, I greatly appreciate everyones take on the situation.

Father made no effort to contact the children when they lived in the same state and made even less of an effort when we moved.

The custody agreement states father has primary physical custody of the children, Mother has unlimited partial custody of children at such times as the parties may agree. Father and Mother shall have shared legal custody of children.

Nothing more and nothing less.

Are you saying that you did not have primary custody and were still allowed to file for the adoption? If Dad hadn't contacted your lawyer through all this I would think it was sticky, however, the fact that he did and the fact that the adoption was granted it's unlikely that it would 'be in the best interest of the children' to vacate the adoption.

Atwist

The father is doing this beause he thinks it will get him out of the 14K in back child support he owes and possible have the mother pay him childsupport for kids he doesn't want.

Now if the mother never mentioned to the lawyer that she didn't have primary physical custody of childern how would that affect the case?

Even though father had to consent in the first place for the children to come to washington state, never contacted mother after the children left for 8 months (it takes 6 months to establish residency in Washington). According to the custody agreement mother has unlimited partial custody as parties agree and joint legal.

The adoption paperwork states that mother had legal custody of children and technically she did.

Now how does that work?

Well I would definately talk to your lawyer about this because legally mom didn't have legal custody without a modification in order and in fact could make the adoption not valid.

The reason I question this and it could be an issue is look at it this way. Let's say that a parent does parental kidnapping. There have been several cases where this has happened to the effect it's lasted years. Let's say the kidnapping parent goes to a lawyer claiming to be the mother and has proof of this... they could show birth certificates etc (real or not) and the adoption is granted. Did the lawyer ID the father when he spoke to him? Would you find that to be legal? I'm not saying that is the case in this situation, I'm just pointing out how granting an adoption to someone without legal custody can be dangerous.

That raises another question:

The father had every oppurtunity to stop the process and present his evidence (custody agreement) to my lawyer and refused to do so. I mean literally refused to share the information. Wouldn't that put them both at fault?

In your humble opinion
how would you view the case?

Mom wants the kids. Dad doesn't and dad fumbles his chance at terminating the adoption process.

Where do we go from here/

Does the lawyer have any proof that it was dad that he spoke to? That's going to be a big iffy situation.

I just am not sure how without seeing some sort of custody agreement or proof that mom had legal custody that it was done and that in effect could make the adoption invalid. If Dad's fighting it now what is his excuse? Does he admit to knowing about the adoption before it occurred? It kind of weighs on that.. otherwise mom could look like she committed fraud.

In all honesty the lawyer can't prove it was the father he spoke to. I don't think anyone can. The notices were sent to his mothers house were he claimed he lived and I know she still lives there. So I guess he could claim he didn't know about the adoption and get away with it. His mother did sign for the notice that was sent and a notice was posted in the their local paper for three weeks. He did call the mother's job and harrased superiors about the situation but didn't speak to her.

He did contact a free legal person to aid him in his attempt to stop the adoption days before it was finalized and I guess waited a few months later to contact her again to vacate adoption. So we do have that lawyer as proof that he knew about the adoption process before it was finalized.

The adoption does not take away any back child support he owes.