How to Complete and File a Georgia Adoption Petition: Filing and Hearing

A Georgia adoption petition is the verified request you file with the Superior Court in your county of residence asking a judge to make you a child’s legal parent. You file the original petition along with a conformed copy, a packet of exhibits proving the child is legally available and that you are a suitable parent, and any required financial disclosures.¹ The court then appoints an investigator (in most case types), schedules a hearing no sooner than 45 days after filing, and, if everything checks out, enters a final decree.²

Who Qualifies to File

Georgia sets a short list of requirements before you can petition. You must be at least 21 years old, or married and living with your spouse, and at least ten years older than the child. The age-gap rule does not apply if you are the child’s stepparent or a relative. You need to be a bona fide Georgia resident when you file, though exceptions exist for certain interstate and international placements. The statute also requires that you be financially, physically, and mentally able to take permanent custody.³

If you are married, you and your spouse must file together. The one exception is a stepparent adopting a spouse’s child, who files alone.³

What the Petition Must Contain

OCGA 19-8-13 lists every data point the petition itself has to include. The core fields are:

Full legal name, age, date and place of birth, marital status, and current address of each petitioner.
The child’s sex, date and place of birth, and citizenship or immigration status.
The new name the child will carry after the adoption.
The section of Georgia’s adoption code your case falls under: agency placement (OCGA 19-8-4), direct placement from a parent (OCGA 19-8-5), stepparent (OCGA 19-8-6), or relative (OCGA 19-8-7).

Every field must match your attached exhibits exactly. Clerks reject petitions when names, dates, or spellings on the form conflict with the supporting documents, so proofread before you sign.¹

Documents You Must Attach

The petition never travels alone. Which exhibits you need depends on the type of adoption, but each attachment answers one of two questions: is the child legally free to be adopted, and are you a suitable parent.

Surrender or Termination Documents

If the biological parents voluntarily gave up their rights, attach the original written surrender and the corresponding acknowledgment of surrender. If a court terminated parental rights (common in foster-care adoptions through DFCS), attach a certified copy of that order instead. When rights have not been surrendered or terminated and you are proceeding on abandonment grounds under OCGA 19-8-10, no surrender is attached. Instead, the petition itself must include allegations explaining why surrender is unnecessary and how you complied with the notice provisions.¹

Putative Father Registry Certificate

Georgia keeps a Putative Father Registry for biological fathers who have not established legal paternity. Before filing, someone (DFCS, the child-placing agency, or the petitioner’s attorney) must search the registry to see whether any man has registered a claim.⁴ The certificate that comes back, showing either no match or a registrant entitled to notice, gets attached. This matters because a biological father is entitled to notice if he registered, if he has acknowledged possible paternity, or if his identity is otherwise known to anyone involved.⁵

Home Study Report

Agency placements under OCGA 19-8-4 and direct-parent placements under OCGA 19-8-5 generally require a completed home study filed with the petition. The report evaluates your living environment, finances, health, and readiness to parent. Stepparent and relative adoptions under 19-8-6 and 19-8-7 do not require a home study, and the court is not required to appoint an investigator at all in those cases, though a judge can order one at their discretion.⁶ Home studies are typically valid for one year from approval, so update yours before filing if it is nearing that mark.

Written Consent From a Child 14 or Older

When the child being adopted is 14 or older, the child must give written consent, acknowledged in the presence of the court. That means the child will appear before the judge. The adoption cannot go forward without it.⁷

Financial Disclosures (Direct Placements Only)

If a biological parent placed the child directly with you under OCGA 19-8-5, you must file an itemized accounting of every payment you made or agreed to make in connection with the adoption. That covers birth-related expenses, placement costs, counseling and legal services for the biological mother, medical bills, and any other adoption-related services. Your attorney separately files an affidavit listing all fees received or promised. Both the accounting and the attorney affidavit must be sworn before a notary. The purpose is transparency: judges use these disclosures to confirm no one bought or sold a child.¹ Agency, stepparent, and relative adoptions do not carry this requirement.

Signing and Verifying

The petition must be “duly verified,” meaning you sign it under oath affirming everything in it is true. Georgia courts treat a false verification like perjury, so read every line before signing. Verification takes place before a notary public or another officer authorized to administer oaths. You file the original verified petition together with one conformed copy.¹

Where to File and What It Costs

File with the Clerk of the Superior Court in the county where you live. Georgia’s superior courts have exclusive jurisdiction over adoptions. If you are a nonresident, you may file in the county where the child lives or where the child-placing agency with legal custody is located. Military families stationed at a Georgia post can file in an adjacent county, and certain interstate placements may be filed in the county of the child’s birth or in Fulton County.⁸

Filing fees vary by county. In Fulton and Cobb counties, the fee is $218, reflecting the standard superior court civil action rate. Confirm the amount with your clerk before you go. The clerk assigns a civil action case number and stamps the filing date, which starts every timeline that follows.

Serving Notice on Interested Parties

After filing, you must notify anyone with a legal interest in the child. A biological father who is not a legal father and has not surrendered his rights is entitled to notice if his identity is known to you, your attorney, or the agency, or if the registry search returned a match. Notice can be delivered by certified or registered mail with return receipt requested, by personal service, or by publication once a week for three consecutive weeks in the official newspaper of the county where the petition was filed and the county of the father’s last known address. Mail or personal service should be attempted first, but you can start publication at the same time to avoid delays. Before relying on publication alone, you must swear that personal service and mail were attempted without success.⁵

File proof of service with the clerk once it is complete. The court cannot hold the final hearing until at least 30 days after the last person was deemed to have received notice.² Sloppy notice is the most common basis for challenging an adoption later, so get it right the first time.

The Court Investigation

For most adoption types, the court appoints an agent to investigate before the hearing. The agent can be DFCS, a licensed child-placing agency, an independent evaluator, or any individual the judge considers qualified. You may suggest names, but the judge makes the final appointment.⁶ The investigator verifies the petition’s claims, visits the home, assesses the child’s adjustment, and submits a written report and recommendation. You and your attorney receive a copy.

If the appointed agent cannot complete the work, they must notify the court within 20 days so a replacement can be appointed. Stepparent and relative adoptions get a lighter touch: the court may appoint an agent but is not required to, and no home study is needed. When DFCS or a licensed agency has already consented to an adoption under OCGA 19-8-4, the investigation can be waived because the agency has already vetted the placement.⁶

The Final Hearing

The court sets the hearing no sooner than 45 days after you file and no sooner than 30 days after the last interested party received notice. Georgia’s stated policy is that uncontested adoptions should be heard as quickly as possible, but no later than 120 days after filing, unless the petitioner has not yet delivered the investigation report or other required exhibits. A judge can shorten the 45-day minimum if you show that notice is complete and the report is ready.²

At the hearing, the judge reviews the petition, the investigation report, and every exhibit. Expect to answer questions under oath about your relationship with the child and your plans for their care. The standard is the child’s best interests, not just whether the paperwork is technically correct.

If the judge is satisfied, they sign a final decree of adoption. The decree names the child under their new name, terminates the legal rights of each former parent or guardian (with your spouse exempted in a stepparent adoption), and declares the child to be your adopted child with all the legal rights that entails, including inheritance. The clerk issues certified copies of the decree at no additional charge when it is entered.⁹

After the Decree

Once the adoption is finalized, the court sends a report of adoption to Georgia’s State Registrar of Vital Records. The State Registrar issues a new birth certificate listing you as the parent. In a full adoption where neither parent is the child’s biological parent, you can choose whether the certificate shows the child’s actual place of birth or your residence at the time of the child’s birth, so long as the location is in Georgia. In a stepparent adoption, the true place of birth is always shown. The original birth date carries over.

The original birth certificate is placed in a sealed file. All court records connected to the adoption (petition, exhibits, motions, orders, and the docket entry) are kept sealed and locked, and are not open to the public. If an interested party ever needs to examine the sealed records, they must file a written petition under seal, with at least 30 days’ notice to DFCS and any involved agency before the court holds a hearing.¹⁰

One deadline to keep in mind: the final decree cannot be challenged in court more than six months after it is entered.⁹ Once that window closes, the adoption is permanent for all legal purposes.

1
Justia Law. Georgia Code 19-8-13 – Petition, Filing and Contents, Financial Disclosures, Attorneys Affidavit
2
Justia Law. Georgia Code 19-8-14 – Timing of Adoption Hearing
3
Justia Law. Georgia Code 19-8-3 – Who May Petition to Adopt
4
Georgia Division of Family and Children Services. Putative Father Registry and Birth Certificates
5
Justia Law. Georgia Code 19-8-12 – Notice to Biological Father
6
Justia Law. Georgia Code 19-8-16 – Investigation by Court-Appointed Agent
7
Child Welfare Information Gateway. Consent to Adoption – Georgia
8
Child Welfare Information Gateway. Court Jurisdiction and Venue for Adoption Petitions – Georgia
9
Justia Law. Georgia Code 19-8-18 – Hearing, Decree of Adoption
10
Justia Law. Georgia Code 19-8-23 – Where Records of Adoption Kept