The New York Times blog interviewed some lawyers and social workers about how to prevent adoption problems.
I particularly agreed with what Howard University law professor Cynthia Mabry said about the benefits of providing post-adoption support:
Counseling Services. Counseling will help the parent to identify ways of addressing the challenges that the child presents and to deal with the parent’s frustrations and feelings as she endeavors to help her child. Counseling for the child will help him to overcome the horrific atrocities (like abuse or neglect at the orphanage and his birth mother’s abandonment) that he has experienced in his short life and to deal with his feelings in more appropriate ways.
Parenting Classes. These classes will help parents to provide support for children who come with various challenges and teach them how to help a child deal with the painful past experiences. Parents also need respite care, especially when dealing with a difficult child.
Post-adoption Reports. An evaluator should visit the home and file a report about the child’s adjustment. Because in-depth probing is often resisted by parents, procedures may need to be reviewed and modified to protect all members of the agency-parent-child triad.
Support Networks. Parents who have adopted children from the same country, especially parents who have had similar experiences, should be made available to provide ideas for problem solving as well as comfort for the parent and interaction with children of a shared nationality. When a child’s challenges cannot be addressed in an out-patient manner, he may be a candidate for inpatient treatment.
Ultimately, a family court judge will do what’s in the best interest of a child in figuring out who should get custody.
In Georgia, once a child is 14, a judge will let a child choose where he wants to live. The judge assumes that the child’s preference is in his own best interest at that point. However, if one of the child’s parents shows that it’s actually in the child’s best interest to live against his preference, a judge may go against what the child wants.
Before they reach 14, however, a judge will consider the child’s preference in determining custody, but won’t automatically let the child choose where to live. Whom the child wants to live with will just be one factor among many that a judge will consider.
To get divorced in Georgia, you have to meet the residency requirements. You’re a Georgia resident if
- You’ve lived in Georgia for the past six months.
- You’re getting divorced from someone else who’s lived in Georgia for the past six months.
Those six months are measured from the time you file the divorce. So if you’ve moved from Georgia to another state and want to come back to Georgia to get a divorce, you have to start the six months all over again.
Does my spouse have to be a resident? Nope. As long as you meet the residency requirement, you can file your divorce in a Georgia court.
What about changing addresses within those six months? That’s fine, as long they’re all in Gerogia.
What about after filing? You’re free to go. The residency requirement is just for when you file. After you file, both you and your spouse can move to a different state.
How do you show that you’re a Georgia resident? First, you can’t claim that you’re a resident somewhere else. Second, anything that makes it look like you live here. Examples: driver’s license, utilities bills, bank accounts, voter registration, library cards.
A news article has been circulating the past couple days with the title, “In Florida, Gay Adoption May No Longer Be Forbidden.”
But the headline is misleading–gay adoption in Florida is no more legal than it’s been since it was banned in 1977. All that’s happened is three state courts granting an adoption to gay couples.
In the latest case, Martin Gill and his partner say that the Florida ban is unconstitutional. The U.S. Court of Appeals will soon release a decision on the case, which will almost certainly be appealed again.
Until that whole appeal process is over, Florida gay adoption will still be “forbidden.”
Before the Maryland attorney general said that the state would immediately begin recognizing out-of-state gay marriages, insurance companies doing business in Maryland already had to give coverage to domestic partners of employees in the state if their employers requested it.
The Maryland Insurance Administration is investigating whether it now needs to update regulations about insurance sales in its state:
If the attorney general’s interpretation of state law stands, then gay couples married out of state will now be treated as spouses in Maryland. The insurance administration will likely add that insurance companies must provide insurance to same-sex spouses, just as it already requires providing to same-sex domestic partners.
When a relationship starts getting serious, people think about living together. For some couples, this happens after just a few months. Others might wait a year or more before deciding to move in together.
Often, especially for younger couples, this means moving into one person’s apartment or other rented home. Here are the legal issues you should consider:
Telling Your Landlord
Your lease may say that you have to tell your landlord if you want to add a roommate. It may even limit how many people can live in your unit. Even if it doesn’t specify any of these things, you should still tell them so that everyone is on the same page. You don’t want to give your landlord any reason to evict you or charge you some penalty for not revealing a change in occupancy.
You certainly don’t have to tell your landlord your relationship status with your partner. You can just call yourselves “roommates” and be done with it.
Most couples probably don’t bother telling their landlord, and think that the landlord probably won’t notice or find out anyway. They will. Go ahead and tell them so that you avoid problems later.
Will You Have to Pay More?
Probably. The landlord can increase the rent and usually the security deposit based on an additional person living in the apartment. Go ahead and pay it—it’s not worth it to hide the fact that you and your partner are now living together there.
Rights and Responsibilities of the New Person
If you move into your partner’s apartment, can the landlord make you pay rent or charge you for damaging property? Can you live there if your partner moves out?
No, unless you decide to become a cotenant. Let’s say Amy moves into Jannelle’s apartment, and Janelle tells that to her landlord. This could develop in four ways:
- They don’t do anything else. The lease will still only be a contract between the landlord and Janelle, so the landlord can’t make Amy pay rent, and the landlord doesn’t owe Amy anything.
- Amy and Janelle sign a new lease that makes them both cotenants. Now, they each have obligations to pay rent and other things and each have a right to live in the apartment.
- Without signing a new lease, they tell the landlord that Amy is going to be a cotenant. Depending on state laws, this might create an oral contract that has the same effect as #2
- Without signing a new lease or telling the landlord that she’s now a cotenant, Amy starts acting like one. She pays rent directly to the landlord. Also depending on state laws, this might create an implied contract, again having the same effect as #2.
Subtenants
Sometimes the person moving in will contribute to the rent, but will pay the money directly to his partner, not to the landlord. This is a subtenant relationship.
The key difference between being cotenants and one person being a subtenant is in who can legally kick someone out:
- Cotenants: The landlord, but not the original tenant, can end the lease for either person.
- Subtenant: The original tenant can legally tell the new person to move out.
A lot of couples like this relationship better at first. If the couple breaks up, the original tenant can legally tell his ex to move out. But watch out—your landlord may not let you do a sub-tenancy. If they don’t—and it’s what you want—it’s much better to find an apartment complex that will than to hide it from your landlord.
