Reply
Wed 2 Mar, 2005 02:10 pm
I had a son before I got married and thought he was my soon to be husband's child. He signed the birth certificate. When my son was three and I was still married I began to suspect he may have been my former boyfriend's child. I went to my husband at that time and shared the information. He chose not to do anything about it. We divorced about three years later and now nine years later and six years after our divorce (my son is twelve) he has finally gotten a DNA test and discovered my suspicions were correct. I have agreed to let him only pay child support for our daughter going forward if he will sign away his parental rights. Can we do this and if so how do we go about it?
You'd need to present the DNA results to a judge (in a family court) and ask that any existing support order be modified and the birth certificate be amended.
I don't know how loose FL courts are on this sort of thing. We had a similar case up here in MA last year where the judge basiclly told the guy "to bad!" and told him that since he'd signed the birth certificate he accepted reponsibilty and he was stuck with paying child support anyway.
You need to talk to a family lawyer in FL to find out the step by step process.
I doubt he would be able to sign away his rights unless you could go after the other guy for child support or you were getting remarried and your new husband wanted to adopt your son.
Most states won't let anyone sign away their parental rights unless someone else is legally in place to assume them because the state doesn't want to end up having to support the kids.
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace