Adoption
Build the family and secure the legal relationship. Every adoption has a personal story and a detailed legal process. Our attorneys help families understand consent, background checks, home studies, notice, placement and finalization.
The correct process depends on the family
Stepparent, relative, agency, independent, adult and interstate adoptions follow different requirements. Early legal guidance can prevent consent, notice or jurisdiction problems later.
Types of adoption we help families navigate
Stepparent and relative
These cases may involve a known child and existing family relationship, but consent, parental rights and required investigations still must be addressed.
Agency and independent
Placement, relinquishment, expenses, background information and statutory timing require careful coordination among parents, agencies and counsel.
Adult adoption
Adults may use adoption to formalize a parent-child relationship, with different consent and procedural requirements than adoption of a minor.
Who Can Adopt in North Carolina?
North Carolina’s adoption law, Chapter 48 of the General Statutes, sets a low bar for who may petition and a high bar for the process itself. Any adult may adopt. You do not have to be married, own a home or have a particular income. What the court cares about is whether the placement is in the child’s best interest and whether every legal requirement has been met.
Age Requirements
A petitioner must be at least 18 years old. There is no maximum age, although an agency or a birth parent choosing a family may weigh age. In an adult adoption the adoptee must also be 18 or older and must consent personally.
Residency Requirements
The petition may be filed in North Carolina if the adoptive parent or the child has lived in the state for at least six months before filing, or if the child was placed by a North Carolina agency. Out-of-state families adopting a North Carolina child usually file here and must also comply with the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children.
Marriage Requirements
Single adults may adopt. A married person generally must adopt jointly with his or her spouse unless the spouse is the child’s parent (a stepparent adoption), the spouses are legally separated, or the court waives the requirement. Unmarried couples cannot adopt a child jointly in North Carolina; one partner adopts and the other may later petition as a stepparent only after marriage.
Background Requirements
Every prospective adoptive parent, and every adult in the household, undergoes a criminal history record check and a check of the child abuse and neglect registry as part of the preplacement assessment. Certain convictions, including crimes against children and violent felonies, disqualify a placement. Stepparent and close-relative adoptions may qualify for a waiver of the full home study but still require the background checks.
Two Types of People May Be Adopted
Child Adoption
Any minor may be adopted once the rights of the legal parents have been addressed by consent, relinquishment to an agency, or termination. A child 12 or older must also consent personally unless the court finds it is not in the child’s best interest to require it. Most of the process, from the preplacement assessment to the report to the court, exists to protect children.
Adopting a Child Internationally
International adoptions run on two tracks. If the child’s country is a party to the Hague Adoption Convention, the family works through a Hague-accredited agency and files Form I-800A with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services before being matched. If the country is not a Hague party, the family files Form I-600A and the child must qualify as an orphan under U.S. immigration law. In either case, a North Carolina readoption or recognition proceeding is often needed after the child comes home so the family has a state decree and a North Carolina birth certificate.
Adult Adoption
An adult may adopt another adult to formalize a long-standing parent-child relationship, most often a stepchild or foster child who is now grown. No home study or background check is required, and the biological parents’ consent is not needed. The adoptee’s spouse, and the petitioner’s spouse, generally must consent. Adult adoption changes inheritance rights, so it is often part of an estate plan.
Who Must Consent, and When Consent Becomes Final
Consent is the heart of every adoption of a minor. In most cases both legal parents must consent in writing, in front of a notary or other authorized official. A birth mother cannot sign until after the child is born. A birth father who is married to the mother, is listed on the birth certificate, has acknowledged paternity or has supported the mother during pregnancy must also consent or have his rights terminated.
In North Carolina a parent who signs a consent or relinquishment has seven days to revoke it in writing. After the seventh day the consent is final and can be set aside only for fraud or duress. Consent is not required from a parent whose rights have already been terminated, who has been found to have abandoned the child, or who fails to respond to proper notice.
What the timeline usually looks like
- Preplacement assessment. A licensed agency or county DSS completes the home study before a child is placed, unless waived for a stepparent or relative.
- Placement and consents. The child is placed and every required consent or relinquishment is signed.
- Petition filed. The petition is filed with the clerk of superior court in the county where the petitioner or child lives, with the consents, assessment and accounting of expenses.
- Report to the court. The agency files a report on the placement, generally within 60 days after the petition.
- Hearing and decree. The clerk holds a hearing, ordinarily within 90 days of filing if uncontested, and enters the decree of adoption.
- New birth certificate. Vital Records issues an amended birth certificate showing the adoptive parents.
From eligibility and consent to final decree
The process commonly includes a petition, required consents or relinquishments, notice to legally interested parties, criminal-history and child-abuse checks, an assessment or report when required, review of expenses and a court determination that statutory requirements are satisfied.
Interstate placements may also require compliance with the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children before the child crosses state lines.
Issues that may require special attention
- Identity or location of a biological parent
- Contested consent or termination of parental rights
- Putative-father rights and notice
- Indian Child Welfare Act considerations
- Interstate placement approval
- Post-placement contact arrangements
- Medical and social-history records
- Name change and amended birth certificate
Agency, Independent, Foster Care, and Relative Adoption
The legal end of an adoption looks the same no matter how the child came to you: consents or a termination, a petition, a report to the court, a hearing, and a decree. What changes is everything before that. Who found the child, who may legally place the child, what you are allowed to pay, and how much of the front-end work an agency does for you all depend on the path you take. Most families end up on one of these four.
Agency adoption
A licensed North Carolina adoption agency, or a county department of social services, screens and prepares the adoptive family, counsels the birth parents, receives the birth parents’ relinquishment, and matches and places the child. Because the birth parents relinquish the child to the agency rather than consenting directly to a particular family, the agency stands between the two sides and absorbs much of the risk. The agency completes the preplacement assessment, supervises the placement, and files the report to the court that the clerk needs before the hearing.
Agency adoptions cost more up front because the agency’s fees cover that work, but the timelines tend to be more predictable and the birth parents receive counseling that makes a later challenge less likely. The adoptive family still needs its own attorney. The agency does not represent you, and someone has to prepare the petition, confirm the relinquishment is valid, review every dollar spent, and appear at the hearing.
Independent adoption
In an independent adoption, sometimes called a private or direct placement, the birth parents choose the adoptive family themselves and consent directly to that family. The connection may come through a friend, a physician, a church, an attorney, or an adoption facilitator. North Carolina allows independent adoption, but it regulates it closely. Only a parent, guardian, agency, or DSS may place a child, a prospective adoptive family must have a completed preplacement assessment before the child can be placed with them, and every expense paid to or for the birth mother must be one the statute permits and must be reported to the court.
Independent adoption offers more control and often a faster match, and a family that already has a connection to a birth mother may find it the natural route. It also means there is no agency doing the screening, counseling, or paperwork, so the attorney carries that load. Birth parents in an independent adoption should have their own lawyer, paid for by the adoptive family if necessary, because a consent signed without understanding is the consent most likely to be attacked later.
Adopting from foster care
When a child in DSS custody cannot safely go home, the juvenile court changes the permanent plan to adoption and DSS moves to terminate the parents’ rights under Chapter 7B. Once the child is legally free, DSS as the placing agency selects an adoptive family, and in most cases that is the foster family that has been raising the child. North Carolina gives foster parents who have cared for a child a right to be considered for adoption and to ask the court to review DSS’s selection if a different family is chosen.
Foster care adoption is the least expensive path. There are no agency fees, the home study and background checks have usually already been done for the foster license, and legal fees are often reimbursed through the adoption assistance program. Most children adopted from foster care also qualify for adoption assistance, which can include a monthly payment that continues until the child turns 18, Medicaid coverage, and reimbursement of nonrecurring adoption expenses. Families should negotiate the assistance agreement before the adoption is finalized, because the terms are much harder to change afterward.
The tradeoff is time and uncertainty. A foster placement is not an adoptive placement until the parents’ rights are terminated and any appeal is over, and reunification remains the goal until the court says otherwise. Foster parents who want to adopt should say so early, keep detailed records of the child’s care, and stay in close contact with the child’s DSS worker and guardian ad litem.
Relative and kinship adoption
Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and adult siblings adopt children every year in North Carolina, sometimes out of a DSS case and sometimes by private agreement with the parents. The process is the same as any other adoption of a minor: both parents must consent or have their rights terminated, and the court must find the placement is in the child’s best interest. What relatives gain is a lighter front end. A grandparent, sibling, aunt, uncle, great-aunt, great-uncle, or great-grandparent may ask the court to waive the preplacement assessment, and the report to the court after placement is shorter. Background checks are still required.
Before filing, relatives should think about whether adoption is the right tool. Adoption permanently ends the parents’ rights and makes the relative the legal parent for every purpose, including inheritance and child support. If the parents may recover and the family wants to leave a door open, custody under Chapter 50 or guardianship through the clerk may fit better, and a relative who takes guardianship of a child from foster care may qualify for the state’s guardianship assistance program. If the goal is permanence and the parents are not coming back, adoption gives the child and the relative the security that a custody order cannot. See our guide to grandparents’ rights in North Carolina.
What You May Pay for, and What North Carolina Prohibits
Article 10 of Chapter 48 draws a hard line between paying the legitimate costs of an adoption and paying for a child. Getting on the wrong side of that line is a crime, and it can also give a birth parent grounds to attack the consent. Every dollar spent in connection with an adoption must be accounted for in a sworn statement filed with the petition, so the court sees all of it.
Expenses adoptive parents may pay
Under G.S. 48-10-103, an adoptive family may pay, directly or through an agency or attorney, the agency’s fees, the cost of the preplacement assessment, medical, hospital, nursing, and pharmaceutical expenses connected with the pregnancy and birth, counseling for the birth parents, reasonable legal fees and court costs for both sides, travel connected with the pregnancy, and the birth mother’s ordinary living expenses during the pregnancy and for up to six weeks after the birth. The family may also pay for a birth parent’s independent attorney. A payment that is not on the list can be approved only if the court finds it reasonable.
Two rules apply to all of it. The payment cannot be conditioned on the birth parent signing a consent or relinquishment or on the adoption going through, and the birth parent cannot be required to pay it back if she changes her mind. An adoptive family that hands a birth mother money and expects it back if she keeps the baby has crossed into unlawful territory.
Payments the law forbids
G.S. 48-10-102 makes it unlawful for anyone to pay, offer, request, or accept money or anything of value for placing a child, for a consent or relinquishment, for locating a child for adoption, or for arranging an adoption, except as the statute allows. That includes a birth parent asking for a payment in exchange for signing, an intermediary charging a finder’s fee, and an adoptive family offering a bonus. Ordinary agency fees, attorney’s fees, and the permitted expenses are the exceptions, and the statute expressly allows a parent to receive help that is not conditioned on the outcome.
Who may place or advertise
Only a parent, a guardian with authority over the child, a licensed agency, or a county department of social services may place a child for adoption, and only those parties or a registered adoption facilitator may solicit adoptive parents for a child. Public advertising that someone will place or accept a child for adoption is limited to county DSS offices, licensed agencies, and facilitators. A prospective adoptive family may advertise that it wants to adopt, but only after a preplacement assessment has found the family suitable, and the advertisement must say so, name the agency that completed the assessment, and give the date. It may add that the family is willing to pay lawful expenses.
Penalties
Placing a child without authority, advertising unlawfully, or making or taking an unlawful payment is a Class 1 misdemeanor, and the district court may enjoin the conduct. The practical penalty is often worse. A consent obtained by an unlawful payment is vulnerable, an adoption built on an unlawful placement can be denied, and an accounting that omits a payment invites the clerk to ask what else was left out. Families who are unsure whether a payment is permitted should ask before making it, not after.
Formalizing the family already at home
A stepparent adoption can provide legal authority, inheritance rights and permanence, but it generally requires resolving the rights of the child’s other legal parent. Consent may be available; otherwise a separate legal basis may be required.
Because adoption permanently changes legal parentage, courts and clerks require precise documents and compliance with Chapter 48.
After finalization
The adoptive parent assumes the legal rights and responsibilities of parenthood. The decree supports issuance of an amended birth certificate and affects inheritance, decision-making, support and other family rights.
Common Questions About Adoption
How long does adoption take?
Timing varies widely based on the type of adoption, required assessments, consents, placement rules, notice and whether any issue is contested.
Does the other biological parent have to consent?
Often consent or relinquishment is required, but Chapter 48 contains exceptions and procedures addressing particular circumstances. The facts must be reviewed individually.
Is a home study always required?
Not in every adoption. Requirements and possible waivers depend on the adoption type and relationship between the petitioner and adoptee.
Can an adult be adopted?
Yes. Adult adoption follows a different process and generally requires the adult adoptee’s consent.
Can we agree to continued contact after adoption?
Families sometimes discuss post-adoption contact, but enforceability and legal effect depend on the circumstances and applicable law.
What if the child is coming from another state?
The Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children may require approval before placement or travel. Do not move a child across state lines without confirming compliance.
How much does it cost to adopt in North Carolina?
It depends on the path. A stepparent or relative adoption handled by an attorney is usually the least expensive because there is no agency fee and the home study is often waived. Private and agency adoptions add the preplacement assessment, agency fees and, where permitted, the birth mother’s reasonable medical and living expenses, all of which must be itemized for the court. Adoption from foster care through DSS has minimal cost and often comes with a monthly adoption assistance payment. A federal adoption tax credit may offset qualified expenses.
Can a birth parent change their mind?
Yes, within a narrow window. In North Carolina a consent or relinquishment may be revoked in writing within seven days after it is signed. After that it is final unless a court finds it was obtained by fraud or duress. Adoptive families should not treat a placement as secure until the revocation period has passed.
Can a single person, an unmarried couple or a same-sex couple adopt?
A single adult may adopt. Married couples, including same-sex married couples, adopt jointly. North Carolina does not allow two unmarried adults to adopt a child together, so an unmarried couple must decide which partner will be the legal adoptive parent, and the other may adopt as a stepparent after marriage.
Can grandparents or other relatives adopt?
Yes. Relative adoptions are common when parents are unable to care for a child. The preplacement assessment can often be waived, but the parents’ rights must still be addressed by consent or termination. Families sometimes weigh adoption against guardianship or a custody order; adoption is permanent and ends the parents’ rights and obligations, while custody does not.
Does adoption end the biological parent’s child support obligation?
Yes, going forward. Once the decree is entered the former parent has no duty to support the child, and no right to custody or visitation. Child support that was already past due when the adoption was finalized is still owed.
Are post-adoption contact agreements enforceable?
Families may agree in writing to ongoing contact between the child and a birth parent, and many adoptions work well on that basis. North Carolina does not, however, treat these agreements as enforceable court orders, and a birth parent generally cannot sue to enforce one. Any agreement should be written with that limitation in mind.
Do we need a lawyer for a stepparent adoption?
The forms are available from the clerk, but stepparent adoptions fail most often on the other parent’s rights. If that parent will not consent, a termination of parental rights action must be filed and proven first. An attorney also makes sure the notice, waiver and background-check requirements are met so the decree cannot be attacked later.
What is the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children?
The ICPC is an agreement among all fifty states that requires approval from both the sending and receiving state before a child is placed for adoption across state lines. Taking a child home to another state before ICPC clearance can jeopardize the adoption. We coordinate the paperwork so the family can travel as soon as legally possible.
Do I still need a lawyer if I am adopting through an agency?
Yes. The agency handles the match, the counseling, the relinquishment, and the report to the court, but it does not represent you. Your attorney prepares and files the petition, confirms that the relinquishment and any consents are valid, reviews the accounting of expenses, and appears at the hearing. Problems with a relinquishment or an interstate placement are far easier to fix before the petition is filed than after.
Is independent adoption legal in North Carolina?
Yes. Birth parents may choose the adoptive family and consent directly to them. The family must have a completed preplacement assessment before the child is placed, only a parent, guardian, agency, or DSS may make the placement, and every expense paid must be one the statute allows and must be reported to the court.
Can we pay the birth mother’s living expenses?
Within limits. North Carolina allows an adoptive family to pay a birth mother’s reasonable living expenses during the pregnancy and for up to six weeks after the birth, along with her medical, counseling, legal, and travel costs connected with the pregnancy. The payments cannot be conditioned on her signing a consent, and she cannot be required to repay them if she decides to parent. Everything paid is disclosed to the court in a sworn accounting.
Can we advertise that we want to adopt?
Only after a preplacement assessment has found you suitable to adopt. The advertisement must state that, name the agency that completed the assessment, and give the date, and it may say that you are willing to pay lawful expenses. Advertising that you will place or accept a child for adoption is limited to DSS, licensed agencies, and registered facilitators.
What is an adoption facilitator?
A person or organization that helps connect birth parents with prospective adoptive families but is not a licensed agency. Facilitators may solicit and advertise within the limits of Chapter 48, but they cannot place a child, take a relinquishment, or complete a home study. A family working with a facilitator still needs an agency or DSS for the preplacement assessment and an attorney for the legal work.
Do we have to be the child’s foster parents to adopt from foster care?
No, but most foster care adoptions are by the foster family. DSS selects the adoptive family once the child is legally free, and the family that has been raising the child is usually the first considered. Families who are licensed to foster and want to adopt can also be matched with a waiting child who is already free for adoption through the state’s adoption exchange.
What is adoption assistance?
A program that helps families adopt children from foster care who have special needs, which in North Carolina includes most children in DSS custody. It can include a monthly payment that continues until the child turns 18, Medicaid coverage, and reimbursement of nonrecurring expenses such as legal fees. The assistance agreement should be signed before the adoption is finalized. Adoptive families may also qualify for the federal adoption tax credit.
Is relative adoption faster than other adoptions?
Often, because the child is usually already in the home and the court may waive the preplacement assessment for a grandparent, sibling, aunt, uncle, or great-relative. The consent or termination requirement is the same, though, and a contested termination takes as long for a relative as for anyone else.
Should a grandparent adopt or seek custody or guardianship?
It depends on whether the goal is permanence or a safety net. Adoption ends the parents’ rights forever and makes the grandparent the legal parent. Custody or guardianship leaves the parents’ rights intact and can be changed later if they recover. A grandparent who takes guardianship of a child from foster care may also qualify for the state’s guardianship assistance program. Talk through both before filing.
What happens if someone pays for a child?
Paying, offering, requesting, or accepting money for placing a child, for a consent, or for arranging an adoption is a Class 1 misdemeanor in North Carolina, and the court can enjoin it. Beyond the criminal exposure, a consent obtained by an unlawful payment can be set aside and the adoption can be denied. Agency fees, attorney’s fees, and the expenses the statute permits are the only exceptions.
Related Topics
Stepparent Adoption
How a stepparent becomes a legal parent in North Carolina, what happens when the other parent will not consent, and what the process costs.
Adult Adoption
Making a long-standing parent-child relationship legal without a home study, and what it changes for inheritance and estate planning.
International Adoption
Hague and non-Hague countries, immigration, citizenship, and why most families complete a North Carolina readoption after coming home.
Meet with a team near you
Take the next step toward finalization
We help families identify the correct adoption path and complete the required legal process.
For general information only; not legal advice. Source: North Carolina Adoption Law, Chapter 48.
Managing Partner and Co-Founder, McIlveen Family Law Firm. Angela is a Board Certified Specialist in Family Law, certified by the North Carolina State Bar Board of Legal Specialization, and an experienced family law trial attorney who represents clients across North Carolina. She personally reviewed this page for legal accuracy.
