My sister had a baby in January and the father of the baby did not sign the birth certificate and still has not signed it. He has verbally told her he does not want nothing to do with the baby, which includes legal responsibility. So we want to know 3 things...
1) With the above said, can she seek from him child support and receive full custody with no visitation (regardless if he changes his mind in court about wanting to be involved in the babys life?) Would this be difficult to obtain?
2) He has stated he will have a lawyer draft a document that will state that he absolves full legal responsibility to the child and in return she will agree not to seek child support. Is such an agreement possible?
3) If she decides not to pursue child support and he still does seek full legal responsibility to his child, will it hurt her down the road if one day he decides to take HER to court to prove paternity and fight for custody?
Your sister can seek to establish paternity and be awarded child support even if he wants nothing to do with the child or refuses to acknowledge paternity. Paternity will be established by means of DNA testing.
Daniel Clement
