Making Family Ties Stronger
Video Transcribed: Can I adopt an adult in Oklahoma? Hello. I’m Ty Smith, an Oklahoma City area lawyer with Wirth Law. Good news. You absolutely can. This one’s going to be pretty quick because it’s relatively simple and easy, which is not… Those aren’t adjectives that typically follow matters of family law. Quick and easy just don’t go along with family law.
Anyway, so there are a couple of requirements though, and they seem very obvious. First off, does the person who is going to be adopted want to be adopted? Okay. If so, good. Secondly, and this one’s pretty obvious, the petitioner, the person looking to adopt this adoptee, if you will, do they want to adopt the person? Good. Cool. Awesome.
Now I said it’s relatively easy and the big reason for that is because there are not a lot of people that really need to know about the adoption necessarily. In normal adoption cases, you have to give notice to family members, you have to give notice to parents, and you have to try to get parental rights terminated. It’s not that big a deal. It’s really relatively simple. The only real notice you have to give for the whole proceeding is if the person being adopted has a spouse, they have to be told about it, which sounds silly, but you got to tell them that that’s happening and they have to know and they have to have their say in court. Well, I guess there is one other part. If the person being adopted is legally incompetent and therefore requires a guardian, is under guardianship, that guardian has to be informed of the proceeding and has to give their okay. That seems relatively obvious, but maybe not.
If this sounds like something you want to talk to an attorney about or really any family law matter, I can help you with that. I can talk to you about those matters. Once more, I’m Ty Smith, an adoption attorney in Oklahoma. I’m with Wirth Law. You can find me at theOklahomaCityAttorney.com. You can also call my office at (405) 888-5400 and I’d be glad to speak with you about this.
