How long do TPR appeals take????

I'm sorry this is happening. I don't have good news...when we had a recent team meeting and they told me if BM appealed her TPR it would delay permanency a minimum of 6m, but more likely 9-12m.

Oh you are not going to like my answer. So I apologize in advance for ruining your day. ;(My kids had TPR Dec 2008. Yes 2008!!!! Mom appealled. Appeal went to higher court A YEAR LATER , judge didnt like the wording. 6 months later, it was back at the first court to be reworded. Now 6 Months later it was finally again in front of the judge in the higher court. We are just waiting for ruling. Oh and Mom could appeal again. Mom is in prison for another 4 yrs for homocide. The kids havent seen her since spring 2007. She was never given a plan. Nothing. Yet here they sit!

We were told that if mom appealed the TPR, we should expect a year before the appeal was resolved. She did not appeal (fortunately) and her time to do so has passed. If you can, look into any public postings of your state's appealate courts. In VA, where I live, I just did a Google search on "TPR Court Appeal Virginia" and "Termination of Parental Rights Appeal Virginia" kind of terms. This lead me to a weekly review for the state's attornies which detailed out the ruling from the state's upper courts. TPR appeals here, become public when they go to the higher court. So, I was able to read through 5 or 6 years worth of cases and found only ONE where the TPR was overturned.In that one case, the mother was in transit from the state prison to court. She was late and the judge didn't wait for her. The judge issued the TPR before mom arrived. Since she was in care of the state the entire time, the appealate court judge revoked the TPR and sent it back to the lower court to be retried with mom there. The revocation of the TPR did not reunite the child(ren) with Mom who was still in prison. It did make the original judge have a second trial.Typically, the higher courts will only change the ruling of the lower court if there was something procedurally wrong with the original trial.Seriously, do some deep Google digging to see what you can find. Let me know if you get stuck.It is going to try your patience, but you'll make it through. Just stick in there.

Thanks. I have been googling, and it all seems nuts. I cannot believe that there are cases still in limbo from 2008!!!!!! God bless foster parents - you are an amazing bunch.Yes, it looks like the ruling will be anywhere from 9-18 months away - ugh. I just want to see/read the appeal myself. I am not a lawyer, but I am smart enough to see if the BM's appeal has any validity.My fear is that if her voluntary consent is overturned months after her consent was supposed to be "irrevocable", that will screw future adoptive parents and set a precedent for other birthparents. I'm sorry, but there has to be an end. That's the way life is.For heaven's sake, we are talking about a baby, a little person's life. Why would someone want to screw that up???? I just don't understand some people...So I will just suppress everything and try to enjoy the moments I have - and they are amazing, b/c this little guy is the best baby ever!!!!!

Was this a DHS case or were you with a private adoption only agency? I'm just trying to understand how the child was in foster care for 10m if the mother voluntarily placed the child with the agency...that part of your situation confuses me.Just remember, you cannot appeal an order or decision just because you do not like it. You must have grounds, or legal reasons. So just because you can appeal doesn't mean your appeal will ever even be heard by a higher court. I would imagine that due to the voluntary nature of your situation that she'd have a lot more burden of proof in this situation.The likely-hood of the court setting new precedent on appeal is not good. The will look to see if somehow she did not understand the voluntary nature of her situation. They will look at it and see if they waited the mandatory 72 hours after the child was born for the mother to consent. They will look at if she was of full mental capacity (ie, not drunk/high, of lower mental capacity, or suffering from some kind of mental illness) and if she was made false promises to get her to agree to the voluntary termination. They will look for legal errors in the process, but not just at the fact that she "changed her mind."Here's a good article A.com has on the subject:[url=http://library.adoption.com/articles/avoiding-the-pitfalls-in-voluntary-termination-of-parental-rights-.html]Avoiding the Pitfalls in Voluntary Termination of Parental Rights: -[/url]The likely hood of you actually getting your hands on the appeal are slim to none. You are not a party to the case...so unless your agency shares it with you it's not likely you'll see it.I wouldn't worry too much. Especially because she voluntarily placed the baby, her grounds are probably not good for appeal.

We had a little boy whose mom was TPR'd. He moved to an adoptive home (we were foster only). The case was very complicated as the bio had followed her plan but did not finish in time--if there was ever a case I thought could be overturned it was this one. 6 months later the appeal was denied (the appeals court acted like it was a no brainer). Bio could not take it to a higher court because she would have to pay all the costs. In my state you cannot adopt for 6 mo after the tpr anyway, so I don't think any time was lost. Try not to worry (I know this seems impossible) but the odds are sooooo against the bio (like less than 5% chance) at this point.

I'm in VA too. I've had my two babies since 2008 also. They just did TPR, but my case is so crazy that they were actually going home quite a few times and tried TPR a year ago and lost. SO now they have TPR, but mom is appealing but has other appeals for other things so hopefully they are mixing it all up at an appeal in a month or so. I was told that it could take up to 18 months for all the appeals to be complete. But one worker said that in 20 years she has never seen a TPR appeal successful. But you never know. There is always a first. I so understand what you are going through. I wish you the best.

Good luck...here it takes 12 - 18 months standard from what I've been told...so its not something I'm looking forward too when my time comes :(

I've been told to expect 9-18 months. I think the end of our 30 day appeal period is the end of Feb.... DCS expects bio mom to appeal. We will see.

I was told here (NH) can be up to 2 years. The fastest I've heard on this board is six months I think. Sorry for the bad news! The good news is that TPR's are very rarely overturned.

We were told that our county will hear the appeal within 30-60 days, but the neighboring county will take 12-18 months to hear it. I was shocked to hear the differences, but I guess that it really depends on the place and how they prioritize the caseload.