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I have been married a little over a year to my husband, I have a 14 year old boy from my previous marriage. My ex-husband hasn't had any contact with my son since my son was 8 months old and has paid very little child support since then. I have received maybe $200. in support in 14 years.
My ex lives in Texas and I have no idea where he is living or if he even has a job. When I left him he was a violent alcoholic, I do not know if he still drinks.
My son wants to be adopted by my husband, so this is not an issue.
I know we need to hire a lawyer and go from there, however, if they cannot find my ex will the adoption be able to take place?
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I believe they will try to locate the "X", I am not sure if they do a search online, or if they just send notification to the last known address, or what. But if he can not be found, then they will notify him via publication (notice in the public paper), no response to that, then they usually take it to the Judge and the Judge would terminate his rights. (there may be more steps involved) The have to try to find him, but it can be done. Good luck! We just finalized our step-parent adoption of my 14 year old this last May and it was AWESOME!
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When they cannot find the non-custodial parent a public notice is published in the paper. The notice is basically a summary of the case, written of course in legal jargon, that runs in the paper for about a month. If the non-custodial parent does not respond to the notice than the adoption will move forward as though he consented to the adoption.
We had to do our adoption by public notice, as the biomom in our situtation moved without telling us or leaving a forwarding address. You will have to prove to the court that you have done your best to locate the non-custodial parent through such avenues such as asking for a forwarding address from the USPS, using 411, getting in contact with old mutual friends, or family members, as well as using the Internet as a resource with sites like [url]www.anywho.com[/url], or social networking sites like myspace.com, or facebook. Once you have shown the court that you still cannot locate the non-custodial parent after reasonable effort, they will be willing to do a public notice.
Good luck on your adoption! Having to do a public notice adds both time and money to the adoption process, but the end result is worth it!
I did just this about 4 years ago in Utah. My then step kids (4 of them - 9 10, 14 and 15) were adopted when their bio-dad didn't respond to a public notice (he refused service by mail and we nor the Court had a physical address on him.
Check your state's laws on service of process as well as adoption as the adoption laws can sometimes have specific notice requirements.
It took me about 3 months from the time I filed until it was finalized - most of that time was waiting for the notices to be published.