Can an adult adopt another adult?

Okay, this may sound like an odd question, but I haven’t been able to find an exact answer anywhere. My dearest,oldest friend and I have known each other for twenty years,and we consider ourselves to be brother and sister. Is there a way to make this official? Can we legally adopt each other, or could one of us adopt the other? Is this actually possible? We’re six months apart in age. Would it depend on the state? Is this legal anywhere? There doesn’t seem to really be any logical reason why not, but on the other hand, I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard of this.

Short answer: yes, it’s possible in some states. Some gay couples have used it as a way to get legal rights in lieu of a marriage. This article from the New York Times discusses the problems that can result if the couple breaks up. One case mentioned in the article involved a woman who was the granddaughter of the founder of IBM. She adopted her lesbian partner but then they broke up within a year.

Yes. More here.

So there’s still hope that Bill Gates or Donald Trump will adopt me as his son. I’d almost given up!

My Dad died in 1970. When Mom remarried in about 1976, her new husband adopted me (I was 22 at the time).
It was to ensure that I would be treated the same as his biological kids with repect to inheritance.
This was in Ontario.

One of the oddities of the Diane Whipple dog mauling case, in a case fraught with oddities, is that the defendants had adopted the jailed inmate who had raised the murderous beasts.

I doubt that same-sex couples could do it in Tennessee for that exact reason, but my friend and I are not, so that wouldn’t be the problem. I don’t see how we could do it as some kind of parental adoption since we’re so close in age, and that’s absolutely not what I would want to do… I’ve just never heard of anyone doing it in this exact way before, as a sibling adoption (the dog story is BIZARRE, btw.)

Maybe should each just do a power of attorney agreement (if one of us were disabled or mentally unable to make decisions, the other would be legally able to do it, not our actual family members. We both really want to avoid the possibility of that happening!) I’ve thought about that too. Any thoughts about that kind of thing?

Liberace adopted his ‘companion’ (forgot his name) - not only that, but Liberace encouraged him to get facial plastic surgery so they would look more alike! (that whole thing was a big disaster,)

Bill Gates adopted me but he cut me out of the will. And when Trump adopted me, he got into my credit cards and ruined my credit rating. On the plus side if I ever get this credit mess straightened out, I’ll own Ivana Trump :smiley:

Yeah, that’s kind of the problem… it seems that whenever I’ve heard of this being done, it’s always some bizarre thing or other (Liberace, weird dog owners, etc.) With our situation, we really just would like to legalize the fact that the “original families” (the people we’re unlucky enough to share DNA with) didn’t work out too well. Neither one of us wants them to have any say over what would happen if, for instance, one of us became disabled and somebody had to make medical decisions… I guess a living will, power of attorney, etc., could take care of that part of it, at least. I should actually make a new will anyway. It would just be nice to make it legal. :slight_smile:

And the reason the two of you don’t marry is??

Marrying your sister is weird and gross?

Chris has a longtime girlfriend, for one thing. But also, we’re just… well, that’s how it worked out. We’re like brother and sister. If I believed in reincarnation, I’d say that we were siblings for lots and lots of previous lives. :slight_smile:

You consider that a plus???

There is an interesting fact that in Arizona, you can be younger than your adopted child. I’d have to look up the specific ARS, but it allows anyone 18 or older to adopt a person and anyone up to 21 can be adopted.

Why don’t you find some older third party to adopt both of you? Then you can really be brother and sister!

There are also some other reasons for adopting adults:

[ul]
[li]acquiring a prestigious name. For example one Hans-Robert Lichtenberg got adopted, at age 37, by one Princess Marie-Auguste von Anhalt, in return for a monthly pension (that he only had to pay for about three years, until her death). That gained him the legal last name Prinz von Anhalt (not a title, a distinction lost to many), which gained im an entrée to undiscerning society, which he further leveraged to marriage to Zsa Zsa Gabor. He also has adopted people himself, in return against large sums, who also did this to acquire the name “Prinz von Anhalt”.[/li][li]In countries where near relatives are privileged over remote and non-relatives with respect to inheritance tax (this is e.g. the case in Germany), this is an incentive to adopt someone whom you are intending to leave a large sum to.[/li][/ul]

On the whole, I think the best thing to do would be to research Tennessee law on the subject. If we were a same-sex couple, I would be willing to bet we could never do it, but as it is, it seems like it would be at least possible.

My suggestion is that in lieu of adoption you can probably draw up legal documents entitling your supposed adopted “sibling” to whatever rights that you want them to have over you in the event of incapacitation or death. At least in the United states, recent laws have made health decisions not automatic even for spouses; spouses cannot even be told of their other half’s hospitalization or have any say into their treatment plan without an express document giving them that right. At least, that’s what the lawyer said who drew up paperwork for my grandparents.

If you do find that one of you can adopt the other, you are putting into explicit terms one being the “parent” of the other and I’m sure that there are quite different rights for each person in said relationship. I can certainly understand that “divorce” for a civil union or “marriage” might be difficult given that you likely will need to dissolve if when/if one of you wants to actually get married, and as above may not even give the rights you really want. If you really want there to be certain legal protections and rights for each other, the obvious answer is to talk to a lawyer; every jurisdiction is different, thus even an answer from an professional lawyer may be flawed.

At age 75 Doris Duke adopted a woman who was 35. She later was removed from Duke’s will but got $65 mil anyway.

Doris Duke - Wikipedia