Q: My daughter's father (we were never married) left the state over 3 years ago (2018). He made a few half-hearted attempts
to visit her on weekends when he lived in a nearby state. Then he moved across the country and didn't continue contact (end of 2018). In the spring of 2019, I enrolled in Medicaid for my Daughter which triggered the state to initiate a support order. He saw her once on his trip to go to court and then tried keeping in contact calling her until he missed all 3 of the initial calls and I put a stop to it. My daughter's BIO dad then disappeared completely and my daughter, husband, and I started our lives together. He calls me in the summer of 2020 to ask if he can sign over his rights in order to not pay support. I tell him sure, my husband has been her father since she was 1 and would love nothing more than to adopt her. Then nothing until this spring, he decides he's moving back to AR (we live in LA) and wants visitation. My daughter (now 5) doesn't know him at all, we had dinner with him a week ago and it was ok, but can he legally request overnight visitation? He's a stranger to her!
A:
If you and your daughter had not had dinner with him a week ago, I would tell you to hire an adoption lawyer to do the intrafamily adoption by your husband. But there has to be no contact from him and no support for six months to do that.
Now your only choice is to hire a custody lawyer to file for custody and child support and tell him the alternative is the adoption.
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