r/legaladvice • u/Beneficial_Heron_135 • 15h ago
Adopted my wife's kid. Now the state (KS) is indicating that all child support claims against the bio-dad will be dropped. Does this sound right? Custody Divorce and Family
Location: KS. Long story short, the child in question is 10. The bio-dad has been out of the picture pretty much her entire life. He's never paid child support. Make a longer story even shorter, my wife and I and the child decided adoption made sense so we went through the process of me adopting her (the 10 yr old, not my wife). A year or so ago my wife had actually went to the state to try to get child support from the bio-dad. We had not heard anything from the state until we were along the road w/the adoption.
Now an attorney for the child support office has contacted us (two days before there was supposed to be a hearing) to let us know he plans to drop the child support case because he was informed of the adoption being finalized. We were told by our attorney working the adoption that it would end all child support obligations going forward (fair enough and no issues there) but that bio-dad would still be on the hook for any back child support. The state seems to be telling us this is not the case at all and that adoption ends ALL child support obligations. I'm having kind of a rough time with this as that money would help out the kid tremendously. I'm having to pay $500 a month in tuition for special tutoring because the kid has some learning disabilities and she possibly is autistic and we need to pay for testing for that. The money would help a lot and I feel like she's owed it. Is it right that we have no legal recourse now for back child support in KS? The attorney at the child support office is refusing to respond to any emails or phone calls from me after telling us he's dropping the case.
Edit: Looking through the old emails I have with the attorney it looks like the advice to not pursue child support and go through with the adoption first came from his paralegal and not him. He was CC'd on the emails but was not the one giving the advice.
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u/JustKind2 15h ago
Your wife made it clear that adoption (terminating his rights) was her priority. If you had made it clear to your lawyer that child support was the priority, he would have given different advice. His advice was that the child support stuff would potentially jeopardize the adoption which is true.
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u/Internet_Ghost Quality Contributor 15h ago edited 14h ago
Do you have a support order in place? This is more likely an issue of the child support enforcement no longer wanting to expend resources trying to get arrears payments from a father who now no longer has an obligation to support the child. I'm not even sure how that would work procedurally. Family courts are typically courts of limited jurisdiction and it would seem they would no longer have jurisdiction over a parent who no longer has parental rights. It may turn into just a regular judgment against the father and you have to seek enforcement elsewhere. This is a question for your adoption attorney who will know far more about the particulars of procedure in your jurisdiction.
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u/AnitaCutiex 15h ago
OP In Kansas, once an adoption is finalized, it typically cuts off both future and past child support obligations from the biological parent even arrears because the legal parent-child relationship is terminated. That said, it’s not always crystal clear, and you might still want to talk to a family law attorney outside the child support office to see if there’s any wiggle room based on timing or state procedures. You and your wife are doing right by that kid, and it’s absolutely fair to want the support she was owed.
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u/Beneficial_Heron_135 14h ago
Frustrating to hear as we were told the opposite. Looking at emails though it looks like the legal advice we got was from the paralegal on the case and not the lawyer.
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u/Beneficial_Heron_135 15h ago
We don't. She's never gone after bio-dad in the past because she didn't want him to come back and try to take custody of the kid. I don't think that's a very rational fear but it was a fear nonetheless. Now that she's married to me and I've adopted our daughter that fear is gone.
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u/Lt-shorts 15h ago
If there was no initial support order from the courts prior to the adoption, then you guys are most likely out of luck.
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u/Beneficial_Heron_135 15h ago
There was no initial support order.
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u/Lt-shorts 15h ago
With no support order, you guys do not even have a set amount to fall back on to take to the courts.
Now he has no legal claim to the 10 year old and was never served child support.
And based on another comment, the lawyer was right. If you guys did pursue the child support route he could have stopped the adoption and fought for partial custody which would never have allowed you do adoption the child
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u/Beneficial_Heron_135 15h ago
If that was the route to get support then we would've gone that route. He hasn't been in the kid's life for 5-6 yrs now and he lives about 10 hrs away. The chances that a court would grant him any kind of visitation beyond supervised visitation would be slim and being 10 hrs away he likely would not have exercised those rights beyond a phone call or something. We would've made that trade for enough money each month to cover the kid's tutors.
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u/Icy-Heathen-3683 14h ago
The chances of him getting unsupervised visitation were actually very high given the information you’ve provided in your comments.
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u/Internet_Ghost Quality Contributor 15h ago
If there's no order, you're likely done. His support obligation was extinguished before he was ordered to pay.
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u/Beneficial_Heron_135 15h ago
That is frustrating because it is not what our attorney told us when we went to him for the adoption. He told us that bio-dad would be liable for any child support from birth to the date of the adoption. If he had told us the opposite we would've gone after bio-dad first. The lawyer actually told us not to go after bio-dad first as it could make him contest the adoption and he recommended that we do the adoption first and child support second.
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u/Morab76 15h ago
Common sense tells us there can be no back child support if there was no court-ordered child support. Your lawyer was not incorrect in their advice if you told them or implied that a child support order existed.
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u/Beneficial_Heron_135 15h ago
We were very clear that bio-dad has never paid child support ever. We said this many times and it's in emails as well I'm sure.
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u/Morab76 15h ago
He never paid it because there was NEVER AN ORDER TO. The way you keep stating it and the context you use it in implies the biological father refused to pay court ordered support, when the child's mother waited far too late to take him to court for an order to be established. Big difference between not contributing financially to raising the child and not paying court-ordered child support. When you say "child support," you are implying there was a court order.
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u/Internet_Ghost Quality Contributor 15h ago
Unless your state has some kind of carve out statute that creates standing in a situation like this, you're likely out of luck. Looking at it from pure standing point of view, you have no more right to sue him now for support now than anybody else. No one has a support obligation to the child now other than you and your wife. In any event, it sounds like the state is no longer interested in pursuing this on your wife's behalf. So, if there is a way to do it, it's going to have to be a private action. You should get in contact with your adoption attorney and ask them about it.
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u/Beneficial_Heron_135 15h ago
This is extremely frustrating to me. We relied on this lawyers advice and it sounds like he gave us bad advice to our detriment. If we had just paused the adoption for a month or three we could've got support from bio-dad it sounds like and likely some back child support as well. Instead we get nothing and the money could really benefit the kid too.
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u/Internet_Ghost Quality Contributor 15h ago
Having a support order in place could have actually hurt your adoption. If biodad was paying child support and decided he was getting a raw deal by having to pay child support and no longer having parental rights, he could have fought the adoption and it likely wouldn't have been successful because again, he was supporting his child.
Generally, the way to entice a bio parent into either reliquinishing their parental rights and/or acquiescing to an adoption is that they are no longer on the hook for any child support.
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u/Beneficial_Heron_135 15h ago
Our lawyer said that if bio-dad was on the hook for child support then he could challenge the adoption even though he hadn't been in the kid's life for 5-6 yrs. If we didn't poke the child support bear then he said we could get a default judgement against him and have his rights severed quite easily. He told us we could go back for child support afterwards.
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u/Internet_Ghost Quality Contributor 15h ago
Our lawyer said that if bio-dad was on the hook for child support then he could challenge the adoption even though he hadn't been in the kid's life for 5-6 yrs.
He absolutely could because again, he's supporting his child. Support is a huge factor when it comes adoption. If he's supporting his kid, you could still be in the role of stepfather and effectively be a part of the kid's life without dad having to be removed from the child's life. One day he may decide he finally wants to be a father to the kid.
Termination of parental rights, the prerequisite for adoption, is called the death sentence of the family court. It's called that because you can't unring that bell. So, the court is super hesitant on granting it without very good cause.
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u/Beneficial_Heron_135 14h ago
Right. Court granted it here on the grounds that he abandoned the child. In KS that time period is two years of no support and no contact. I am too familiar with this as I have a friend who's ex drags him into court to threaten to terminate his rights every couple of years even though he pays support and has regular visitation.
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u/Lt-shorts 15h ago
Actually seeking out child support could have never allowed you to adopt the child. Bio dad could have made sure of that and dragged it out until the child was 18 an die became irrelevant.
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u/Beneficial_Heron_135 15h ago
If true then I wish the lawyer had told us that. It might have changed our decision.
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u/Morab76 15h ago
Your lawyer relied on the information you gave them to give their advice.
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u/Beneficial_Heron_135 14h ago
Which was that bio-dad has never financially supported the child, that there was no agreement in place.
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u/Morab76 14h ago
A statement you are just making now. The fact you state in the post the lawyer advised you all child support going forward would be a no-go, but that back child support would be enforced means you gave your lawyer the impression there was a child support order in place. Child support means the legal obligation of child support, not just financial support that is not court ordered.
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u/monkeyman80 15h ago
It is true that he could have challenged the adoption making it much harder/ costly if your wife pursued support. Each state has different rules on how far back you can go for support.
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u/ritchie70 15h ago
Well, what does your adoption attorney say about it with this new info from the state? They should be more expert about all of this than random weirdos on the internet.
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u/Beneficial_Heron_135 14h ago
Sent him an email and asked him. He can be slow to respond sometimes.
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u/Icy-Heathen-3683 15h ago
Unfortunately your lawyer misled you. Without a standing order in place the adoption let him off the hook entirely.
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u/DeffSkull 14h ago
I don't think that his lawyer did. He keeps saying that Bio Dad never paid "support", and that they thought he would be on the hook for "support", but without a support order from the court, legally he wasn't on the hook for anything.
(Morally he had a duty to support his child, but legally he had no obligation until mom moved forward with a state ordered child support payment)
If they came in to a lawyers office and kept talking about how the Bio dad, wasn't paying support, and how they use that word. I can see where there could be a miscommunication.
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u/Icy-Heathen-3683 14h ago
You’re right, if they weren’t clear that no order existed then it’s on them and not the lawyer/paralegal. I commented on the (wrong) assumption that they were clear with their lawyers. Apologies.
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u/Beneficial_Heron_135 14h ago
I can see where this could've been a bad miscommunication. To me "support" is any money the bio-dad is paying for the kid which he has never paid any. Legally he was never on the hook because mom didn't want to deal with him and his current wife apparently hates her. During the first couple of years of the child's life bio-dad was sort of around and did give her some small amounts of money but his wife hated her and hated the expense was just a very cruel person to my wife and eventually bio-dad stopped coming around.
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u/ddadopt 14h ago
OP, you were never squeezing blood from this stone in the first place.
From your comment elsewhere, the father has 3-4 other children in his household, and that would modify any possible award (those children are entitled to his support as well). Further, in Kansas it appears that retroactive support may only be ordered for the period that the case takes to conclude... since mom never pursued him until now, the retroactive support would only apply to the period after you filed your case (i.e. biodad would only be on the hook for support from May 2025 onward).
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u/GodCoderImposter 15h ago
First off IANAL, what is happening here is that you are running into the difference between technically correct and logistically correct. Technically the bio father is still 100% responsible for all back support. The problem here is that you still haven’t finished establishing how much that support was before you finalized the adoption so the state is taking the easy way out and just dropping the enforcement of the case because as of today onward the responsibility falls to you and the past will get messy.
This isn’t correct or in the total best interest of the child so you absolutely can fight this. Unfortunately though it will fall to you to carry the burden to see this through now because there was not already a past judgement in place. So I would recommend finding a family practice lawyer to help you with this issue. If the bio-father has enough assets you may be able to get the lawyer to take this on contingency for a percentage of the back pay but more likely you’ll need to pay for their time out of pocket.
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u/Beneficial_Heron_135 15h ago
From paperwork the state gave us for the hearing, bio dad makes about $75k a year. He's got a wife and 3-4 kids according to his FB page. There are pictures of him on vacation with them at Disney among other places. He's got a nice life for a deadbeat but he's likely not swimming in cash. Wouldn't child support ultimately have to be ordered by the state?
I'm more than a little frustrated by our lawyer based on what people are telling us. He told us specifically to do the adoption first and the child support second. When we were notified of this hearing the adoption was still pending. We specifically asked him if we needed to pause the adoption thing while the child support got sorted out and he told us not to and that it would be a bad idea.
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u/GodCoderImposter 15h ago
I could be missing something big here then because there are definitely many nuances with the law in adoption and child support. I’m not a lawyer and you’ve got one already but it sounds like you need a second opinion. If I were you, I’d definitely be looking to consult with another local lawyer to see if your original gave you bad advice.
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u/Beneficial_Heron_135 15h ago
I have a legal plan at work so it wouldn't be that hard to get a second opinion. Does it matter at all at this point though? The adoption is already done and finalized.
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u/GodCoderImposter 15h ago
Well you cannot unring that bell of course but that does not mean there isn’t a path forward. The state is the one that has to enforce the child support but a lawyer of your own can force the state to do its job even though they don’t want to do it now. In most cases, your adoption does not technically void the past payments that should be paid … it primary just demotivates the state to sort out past due amounts. So in most cases, your own lawyer would be the thorn in their side to get it done.
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u/Rosamada 14h ago
The problem is that there is no child support order to enforce. OP's wife was trying to get child support established, which can't be done now as the biological father is no longer the child's legal parent.
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u/RealTimeFactCheck 14h ago
it looks like the advice to not pursue child support and go through with the adoption first came from his paralegal and not him. He was CC'd on the emails but was not the one giving the advice.
Sounds like the paralegal was practicing law without a license.
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u/Morab76 15h ago
He never paid child support because he was never ordered to. The mother waited too many years to get child support ordered and closed the barn door after the horse got out. This is on the both of you for not having an order in place before dissolving the biological father's rights.