Hi All, I wondered if anyone has any experience on adopting a step child from within here in the UK? is this even possible? My Wife has full parental rights ( dad is not on the birth certificate and she has no contact with him)
It helps, that the father is not on the birth certificate, it should make it simpler. This might help https://www.gov.uk/child-adoption/adopting-a-child-from-overseas However I expect there might still be some issues at the Philippine end in getting the child out of the country and I was always of the impression that adoption in the UK was a complex and trying process.
Hi Oss, thank for your reply, and link i will check it out she already is out of the Philippines, we have lived in Thailand for 3 years ( and 3 years prior to that in the Philippines ) and now currently in the UK ( although at the moment only on Tourist visa due to the pandemic we are looking at changing it over)
Started the process and think can see the end of it in a few months. I don't believe you will be able to be it with the child on a tourist visa. You have to inform Local Authority six months in advance of planned adoption and they have their own requirements for supporting step parent adoption which varies depending on local authority. With six years of living as family probably will be ok. Process is on paper to submit intention to adopt to local authority three months before submitting paperwork to court. Then potentially takes another three months to go through. In practise submitted intention to local authority June last year and they changed process to doing checks after three month waiting period but before submitting to court. Took until about march this year before could submit to court and court are now doing requests to home office regarding immigration status and local authority for reports with info due back in August when setting up court date. Slow process but understand posible and met one other couple who did it. Get uk adoption certificate instead of birth certificate and then if you are british the child gets British citizenship. Only issue is likely to be if you change name of child to your surname child may have problems getting filipino passport as you would have to get court order to have it recognised in philippines and SPA birth certificate updated as they won't recognise UK adoption without it.
Thank you , seems a lot more straight forward than doing it in the Philippines, ( we will wait until we have a Dependant visa then try then) t
