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Greetings all! I have a question (which I will run by our agency, ultimately). We have about 11 months left on our valid homestudy. If we, say, received an adoptive placement several months from now, our homestudy would become invalid sometime during the 6 month post placement/finalization period (Ohio). Do you need a valid homestudy at the time of placement or at time of finalization? I am just wondering if we will be possibly required to update our homestudy during a post-placement period for an adoption to be finalized. Thanks in advance for your thoughts and/or experience.
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I hate to be the one to say it but yes you will need an up to date homestudy for both scenarios. Ours expired on early Dec 2010 and our finalization date ended up being Dec 21st 2010. We had some court delays/ TPR issues that led to that extended date but we were required to re-do it. kinda stressful as our finances were more strained d/t huge court expenses and spouse just laid off so we didn't even know if it would be approved. It sucks for the timing but it if that is the last hurdle to finalization ..you will just do it to move forward.
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My experience was actually different from the previous poster. Our HS expired ONE WEEK before our DS was placed with us. The agency never batted and eye. The judge has reviewed everything and we're due for finalization next week. :dance: What was explained to me, per FL & NC law, is they care about the exp date prior to PLACEMENT, not finalization. Good luck!
Hi Heather,I did pose this same question to our SW when we went through our update meeting last month and in Ohio, if your placement comes from Ohio, yes your homestudy has to be valid through finalization. I don't know about other states, so if hypothetically a placement came from out of state and you followed the laws of that state and finalized there they may have a different requirement? Does that make sense? It's early! :-0
It looks to be state by state as to what the rule is.... we had placement on the 1st of the month, our home study expired 8 days later. We finalized 7 months later and no one mentioned the expired home study. I thought we would have to update it but with getting a baby and all the excitement and tiredness that comes with that it slipped my mind. The SW, adoption agency and courts all knew it had expired but we were told it did not matter since it expired after placement.
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Completely depends on the state. No matter where you are the homestudy has to be valid upon placement. Whether it still has to be valid at finalization is another matter. Ours expired 2 months after placement and 4 months before finalization. We did not have to update the entire home study, but we did have to update all of our clearances...FBI, local and state.
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