Austin Adoption Lawyer: What Texas Law Requires Before a Judge Will Sign
Most people come to this page with one of two questions. A stepparent wants to make it official for a child they have already been raising. Or a couple has been matched, the paperwork has started, and nobody has explained what the judge is actually going to require.
Our Austin adoption lawyers handle both, along with relative adoptions and agency finalizations, for families across Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties. Shane M. Boasberg has practiced Texas family law for more than twenty years, and an Austin adoption attorney who does this regularly can tell you inside one meeting which statutory route your case runs on. Below is what Chapter 162 of the Texas Family Code actually requires, in the order a court will look at it. Call (512) 561-5003 for a free consultation.
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Key Takeaways
- An Austin adoption lawyer streamlines the adoption process, ensuring legal compliance and providing emotional support to adoptive families.
- Texas adoption laws prioritize the child's best interests, granting adoptive parents the same rights as biological parents while ensuring that birth parents are informed and consenting. These laws are designed to create safe and loving environments for children as they navigate the complexities of establishing a new family structure.
- The adoption process in Texas involves specific legal requirements for adoptive parents and offers different types of adoption, including domestic, international, and stepparent adoption, each with unique procedures.
What Does an Austin Adoption Lawyer Do?
An adoption is not one case. It is two, stacked, and that is the part families do not expect. It is also why an Austin adoption attorney is worth having before you file rather than after.
Before a court can grant an adoption, the legal relationship between the child and any existing parent has to end. Under Section 162.001(b), a child may be adopted only if every living parent's rights have already been terminated, or a termination suit is joined with the adoption, or the remaining parent is your spouse and this is a stepparent adoption. There is no route in Chapter 162 that lets a stepparent adopt while a second legal parent's rights stay intact.
So the work splits in two. First, ending the other parent's rights, which is either an agreed relinquishment or a contested custody-style fight over statutory grounds. Second, the adoption itself: the evaluation, the criminal history check, consents, the residence period, and the hearing. We handle both halves, and we tell you at the first meeting which one is going to be the hard part in your case. If you are still sorting out what type of lawyer you need, start there.
Texas Adoption Laws: The Rules That Decide Your Case
Texas adoption laws come down to a handful of rules that decide most cases, and several are commonly stated wrong. These are the ones we walk every Austin client through first.
The six-month rule is about living together, not residency. Section 162.009 says a court may not grant an adoption until the child has lived with you for at least six months. It is measured to the date of the order, not the filing, so you can file before the six months have run. Subsection (b) lets the court waive it on your request if the waiver is in the child's best interest. There is no automatic exception for stepparents or relatives.
A child 12 or older has to consent in writing or in court under Section 162.010(c), and must attend the hearing under Section 162.014(b). Both are waivable in the child's best interest. A twelve-year-old does not hold an absolute veto.
If you are married, your spouse has to join the petition. Section 162.002(a) is absolute on this. A married person cannot adopt a child alone in Texas.
You do not have to file where your divorce was. Section 103.001(b) lets an adoption be filed where the child lives or where you live, regardless of which court has continuing exclusive jurisdiction. That surprises people who assume they are stuck with the original court.
Types of Adoption Available in Austin
Most of the adoptions our Austin adoption attorneys handle fall into four groups: stepparent adoptions, relative adoptions by grandparents, aunts, and uncles, private and agency placements where we handle the Texas termination and finalization, and adoptions of children in the care of the Department of Family and Protective Services. The statutory path is different for each one, and so is the amount of the process a Travis County court will require you to sit through.
Domestic Adoption
In a private or agency placement, the birth parent's decision is documented through an affidavit of voluntary relinquishment under Section 161.103. That statute is precise in ways that matter.
It cannot be signed until at least 48 hours after the birth, must be witnessed by two credible people, and must be verified before someone authorized to take oaths. A minor parent can sign one without a guardian or court approval.
How long a birth parent can change their mind depends entirely on what the affidavit says, and the common beliefs about this are wrong in both directions. If the affidavit names the Department or a licensed child-placing agency as managing conservator, Section 161.103(e) makes it irrevocable immediately, with no cooling-off window at all. If it names you as the prospective adoptive parent and states a period of irrevocability, that period cannot exceed 60 days. If it states nothing, Section 161.1035 makes it revocable only before the eleventh day. Sixty days is a ceiling on what an affidavit may claim, not a revocation right.
When the Other Parent Will Not Consent
This is the question that stalls most Austin stepparent adoptions, and the honest answer is that it depends on why the other parent is absent. It is the first thing our adoption attorneys look at.
If they will not sign a relinquishment, the alternative is involuntary termination under Section 161.001, which requires clear and convincing evidence of a statutory ground and a separate finding that termination is in the child's best interest. Both are required; neither one alone is enough. Where termination is joined with an adoption, Section 162.016(a) requires the judge to make separate findings on each.
The grounds that come up most in these cases are failure to support the child for a year within the child's ability, constructive abandonment, and the abandonment provisions covering a parent who left and stayed gone. What does not work is the thing people expect to work: Section 161.001(c) says economic disadvantage, homeschooling, and a handful of other circumstances cannot by themselves support termination. A parent being poor, or being someone you would rather not co-parent with, is not a ground.
One correction worth making plainly: termination is not always permanent. Sections 161.301 through 161.304 let a former parent petition for reinstatement in narrow circumstances.
Stepparent Adoption in Texas: How to Adopt Your Stepchild
Stepparent adoption is the most common adoption our Austin adoption lawyers handle, and it has the shortest path through the statute. Under Section 162.001(b)(2), your spouse keeps their rights, the other legal parent's rights end, and you adopt. Your spouse joins the petition under Section 162.010(b), and no separate consent from them is required.
The evaluation can sometimes be waived, and this is the most useful thing on this page. Section 162.003 requires an adoption evaluation in every adoption suit. Since 2023, Section 107.153(a-1) lets a court waive it for a stepparent, but only if the suit is uncontested and only after the court has reviewed Department investigative records and DPS criminal history for you. It is discretionary, not automatic. Anyone telling you stepparents are simply exempt is working from the pre-2023 rule, and there was no waiver at all before then.
The criminal history check is not waivable. Section 162.0085 requires every person seeking to adopt to obtain their own record through the process in Government Code Section 411.128, which sends it directly to the court. Stepparents are exempt from the health, social, educational, and genetic history report under Section 162.005, which is a different document people confuse with this one.
A former stepparent is not out of options after a divorce: Sections 162.001(b)(3) and (b)(4) keep a path open where the child is at least two and the timing works. Our guide to stepparent adoption in Texas covers the sequence in detail.
The Adoption Process in Texas
Here is the order things actually happen in Travis County.
We confirm standing and the statutory route first, because that determines everything after it. Section 102.005 governs who may file a suit requesting only an adoption, and it got narrower in 2025: the old route for an adult with substantial past contact with the child was repealed effective September 1, 2025. What remains is a stepparent, an adult who has had actual possession and control through an adoption placement in the 30 days before filing, and an adult who has adopted or is fostering and petitioning to adopt a sibling.
From there: the petition is filed, the other parent is served or files a relinquishment, the adoption evaluation is ordered or waived, criminal history goes to the court, the child lives with you through the six-month period, and the case ends at a short hearing where the judge signs.
Most uncontested Austin stepparent adoptions move in a few months once termination is settled. Contested ones take considerably longer, and the variable is never the paperwork.
Who Can Adopt in Texas, and What the Court Checks
Texas is less restrictive about who may adopt than most people assume, and the requirement Austin families ask about most is not in the statute at all.
There is no minimum age of 21 in the Texas Family Code. Section 162.001(a) says an adult may petition to adopt a child, subject to standing under Chapter 102. Private agencies and the Department set their own higher minimums for placements they control, which is where that number comes from, but it is not a statutory bar to a stepparent or relative adoption. You can be single, married, or divorced. If you are married, your spouse joins the petition.
What the court does check is concrete. The adoption evaluation under Section 162.003 examines your home, household, and readiness, and is performed by a licensed social worker, counselor, therapist, or psychologist meeting Section 107.154 qualifications, not a court clerk. Criminal history under Section 162.0085 goes straight from the Department of Public Safety to the judge. In agency and Department cases the agency runs the evaluation under its own rules.
Terminating Parental Rights Under Texas Adoption Law
Termination of parental rights is the load-bearing part of an adoption, and it is where an experienced Austin adoption attorney earns their fee. It happens one of two ways.
Voluntary. The parent signs an affidavit of relinquishment under Section 161.103. Signing one is not self-executing: under Section 161.001(b)(1)(K) an unrevoked or irrevocable affidavit is a ground, and the judge still has to find that termination is in the child's best interest before ordering it.
Involuntary. The court finds a statutory ground under Section 161.001(b)(1) by clear and convincing evidence, plus best interest. The list of grounds was renumbered in 2025 when House Bill 116 repealed the service-plan ground effective September 1, 2025, and every letter after it shifted. Any Texas page still citing the old letters is out of date.
One rule catches families off guard: Section 161.103(h) bars a relinquishment from containing terms for limited post-termination contact, and Section 161.2062 bars a termination order from requiring them. A promise that the birth family stays in touch is not enforceable through these instruments. If continuing contact matters, say so early and we will be straight about what the order can and cannot do.
When rights end, future child support ends with them. Arrears already accrued do not disappear, which is worth raising with an Austin child support lawyer before you agree to anything.
Post-Adoption Support in Austin
Once the Austin judge signs, Section 162.017 makes the adopted child your child for all purposes, including inheritance, and the parent-child relationship is complete as though the child had been born to you.
The order goes to the Department of State Health Services and a new birth certificate issues with your name on it. The original is sealed. Families adopting from foster care should ask us about adoption assistance under Chapter 162, Subchapter D, which is a statutory program, not an agency courtesy, and it is easier to establish before finalization than after.
Adoption resets everything downstream. Prior custody and visitation orders involving the terminated parent no longer apply, and any pending modification or enforcement case against that parent needs cleaning up rather than leaving open.
Why Choose Shane M. Boasberg as Your Austin Adoption Lawyer
Shane M. Boasberg has practiced Texas law for more than two decades, with a background running through private practice, the Texas Legislature, and the Office of the Texas Attorney General. He is recognized by Texas Monthly as a Rising Star and as an Elite Lawyer for 2025, and belongs to the State Bar of Texas, the Austin Bar Association, and the Capital Area Trial Lawyers Association. Client reviews are on the BBB, Yelp, Thumbtack, the Chamber of Commerce, and Expertise.
Our Austin adoption law firm works from an office at 1204 San Antonio Street, two blocks from the Travis County courthouse where these cases are heard. We represent adoptive families of every configuration across Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties, including same-sex couples, and we will tell you at the first meeting whether the termination question in your case is going to be simple or a fight. The job of an adoption lawyer here is not paperwork. It is knowing which fight you are in.
What an Austin Adoption Actually Costs
An Austin adoption attorney who quotes you a flat number before reading the file is guessing. We are not going to publish an average, because the averages you find online blend a contested infant placement with an agreed stepparent adoption and describe neither. What we can tell you is what moves the number.
Whether the other parent agrees. This is the whole ballgame. An agreed relinquishment and an uncontested hearing is a fundamentally different case from a contested termination with discovery and testimony.
Whether the adoption evaluation is waived. Under Section 107.153(e) you pay for the evaluation or the records review either way, but a waived evaluation in an uncontested stepparent case removes a real line item.
Whether an agency is involved. Agency and private placement fees are separate from legal fees and usually dwarf them.
Court costs, service, and the criminal history request, which are modest and largely fixed.
Ask us about adoption assistance if you are adopting from foster care, and about the federal adoption tax credit. We give you a real estimate on your facts at the consultation, not a number off a chart.
Summary
Adoption in Texas comes down to a short list: end the other parent's rights, satisfy the evaluation and criminal history requirements, live with the child for six months unless the court waives it, get consent from a child 12 or older, and have your spouse join if you are married. The rest is sequencing.
If you are a stepparent who has been raising a child and want it to be permanent, call SMB Law, PC at (512) 561-5003 or reach an Austin adoption lawyer through our office. The consultation is free.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are the legal requirements for adoptive parents in Texas?
There is no minimum age of 21 in the Texas Family Code. Section 162.001(a) requires only that the petitioner be an adult with standing under Chapter 102. You may be single, married, or divorced, though a married petitioner must be joined by their spouse under Section 162.002(a). Agencies and the Department apply their own higher minimums to placements they control. An Austin adoption attorney can confirm which set of rules governs your route.
How long does the adoption process take in Texas?
An uncontested Austin stepparent adoption often finishes within a few months of the termination being resolved, limited mainly by the six-month residence requirement in Section 162.009. A contested termination takes considerably longer. The variable is almost never the paperwork; it is whether the other parent fights.
What types of adoption are available in Austin?
Our Austin adoption law firm handles stepparent adoptions, relative adoptions by grandparents, aunts, and uncles, private and agency placements where we manage the Texas termination and finalization, and adoptions of children in Department conservatorship. Each follows a different route through Chapter 162.
What is the role of an adoption lawyer?
An adoption is usually two cases stacked together: ending the existing parent's rights under Chapter 161, and the adoption itself under Chapter 162. An Austin adoption lawyer handles both, manages the adoption evaluation and criminal history requirements, and tells you at the outset which half of your case is going to be difficult.
What post-adoption support is available in Austin?
Austin families adopting from foster care may qualify for adoption assistance under Chapter 162, Subchapter D, which is a statutory program and is easier to establish before finalization than after. After the order, Section 162.017 makes the child yours for all purposes, a new birth certificate issues, and any prior orders involving the terminated parent need to be cleaned up.