Adopting My Thai Step Son

[PaulPerth]

I married my beautiful Thai wife last October in Australia and then did the Thai/Buddhist ceremony on Xmas Day. She has a lovely 9 year old son. I have met his natural Dad who has very little to do with him. When my wife divorced his natural father, she was given a document stating she is the sole guardian. However, we were still asked to get a letter of approval from his natural father for him to emigrate to Australia, this was obtained with no problem at all and submitted to our case officer two weeks later. When my wife went to the local government office with his natural Dad to get the letter of approval (thats when I met him), they told her she doesnt need a letter of approval because she is the sole guardian. She asked them for it anyway, just to comply with the embassy wishes.

My question is this. I would love to adopt my new "step-son" so that he has our family name when he is here in Oz. He has accepted me totally and already wants to call me his Dad.

Has anybody been in this situation? Where does his natural father stand with this in the Thai legal system? I do not intend to visit Thailand again before my wife and her son arrive here on the spouse visa. Can this be done with me in Australia and my wife applying for the adoption before she comes to Oz?

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Paul

Edited March 27, 2006 by PaulPerth

[gburns57au]

I married my beautiful Thai wife last October in Australia and then did the Thai/Buddhist ceremony on Xmas Day. She has a lovely 9 year old son. I have met his natural Dad who has very little to do with him. When my wife divorced his natural father, she was given a document stating she is the sole guardian. However, we were still asked to get a letter of approval from his natural father for him to emigrate to Australia, this was obtained with no problem at all and submitted to our case officer two weeks later. When my wife went to the local government office with his natural Dad to get the letter of approval (thats when I met him), they told her she doesnt need a letter of approval because she is the sole guardian. She asked them for it anyway, just to comply with the embassy wishes.

My question is this. I would love to adopt my new "step-son" so that he has our family name when he is here in Oz. He has accepted me totally and already wants to call me his Dad.

Has anybody been in this situation? Where does his natural father stand with this in the Thai legal system? I do not intend to visit Thailand again before my wife and her son arrive here on the spouse visa. Can this be done with me in Australia and my wife applying for the adoption before she comes to Oz?

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Paul

I will try here but my knowledge on this is based on years ago when everything was easy. I havent checked this on the Immi site as I dont think it their concern, I am not sure which department handles this now, but your local MP could help you.

But first...the letter from the natural father for the purposes of the visas must be a recent one. the document for sole guardianship must, I believe, be issued from the courts.

As far as adoption is concerned and this is off the top of my head...if you do it from Oz then I believe that you will need something from the biological father stating that he has no objection to your adopting his child. This will need to be translated into English obviously.

Your wife will not need to apply for adoption, she is the natural mother...you will need to apply to adopt him. This will need to be done from here once he comes here to live and I am not sure about this but I think he may need to attain his Perm Status before you can do it.

Another option is for him to change his name by deed poll...something my sister and I both did many moons ago and both under 18 yo. However many moons ago is not now, so I dont know what the rules are that apply to this.

Sorry I cant be of more definate help...you need to find the department that handles this and talk to them about it.

Edited March 27, 2006 by gburns57au

[PaulPerth]

You have given me some pointers Graham, once again, many thanks. I have only been on this forum for a couple of days but it has helped me enourmously.

I know this wasn't really the place to post this subject but I respect the advise given here so much, I thought I'd bend the rules a bit!

I made this post before we got the great news today so now its too late to do anything before my wife gets here anyway (on Friday!).

I will suss out the Deed Poll avenue once they get here.

Take care

Paul

[gburns57au]

You have given me some pointers Graham, once again, many thanks. I have only been on this forum for a couple of days but it has helped me enourmously.

I know this wasn't really the place to post this subject but I respect the advise given here so much, I thought I'd bend the rules a bit!

I made this post before we got the great news today so now its too late to do anything before my wife gets here anyway (on Friday!).

I will suss out the Deed Poll avenue once they get here.

Take care

Paul

No worries mate...