(a) The signing of a final order of adoption terminates any existing guardianship orders and establishes from that date the relationship of parent and child between the adoptive parent or parents and the adopted child as if the adopted child had been born to the adoptive parent or parents and the adopted child shall be deemed the lawful child of such parent or parents, the same as if the child had been born to the parent or parents, for all legal consequences and incidents of the biological relation of parents and children.
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Terms Used In Tennessee Code 36-1-121

  • Adoption: means the social and legal process of establishing by court order, other than by paternity or legitimation proceedings or by voluntary acknowledgment of paternity, the legal relationship of parent and child. See Tennessee Code 36-1-102
  • Adoptive parent or parents: means the person or persons who have been made the legal parents of a child by the entry of an order of adoption under this part or under of the laws of any state, territory or foreign country. See Tennessee Code 36-1-102
  • Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. Source: OCC
  • Bequest: Property gifted by will.
  • children: means any person or persons under eighteen (18) years of age. See Tennessee Code 36-1-102
  • Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
  • court: includes the juvenile court for purposes of the authority to accept the surrender or revocation of surrenders of a child and to issue any orders of reference, orders of guardianship, or other orders resulting from a surrender or revocation that it accepts and for purposes of authorizing the termination of parental rights pursuant to §. See Tennessee Code 36-1-102
  • Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
  • Devise: To gift property by will.
  • Guardianship: means the status created by a court order appointing a person or entity guardian of the child. See Tennessee Code 36-1-102
  • Parental rights: means the legally recognized rights and responsibilities to act as a parent, to care for, to name, and to claim custodial rights with respect to a child. See Tennessee Code 36-1-102
  • parents: means any biological, legal, adoptive parent or parents or, for purposes of §. See Tennessee Code 36-1-102
  • Personal property: All property that is not real property.
  • Personal property: includes money, goods, chattels, things in action, and evidences of debt. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
  • Property: includes both personal and real property. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
  • Related: means grandparents or any degree of great-grandparents, aunts or uncles, or any degree of great-aunts or great-uncles, or stepparent, or cousins of the first degree, or first cousins once removed, or any siblings of the whole or half degree or any spouse of the above listed relatives. See Tennessee Code 36-1-102
  • Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
  • Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
  • Surrender: means a document executed under §. See Tennessee Code 36-1-102
  • Testator: A male person who leaves a will at death.
(b) The adopted child and the child’s descendants shall be capable of inheriting and otherwise receiving title to real and personal property from the adoptive parents and their descendants, and of succeeding to the rights of either such parent or such parent’s descendants in such property, whether created by will, by other instrument or by law, including, but not limited to, taking as a beneficiary of a remainder interest following a life interest or estate in either such parent or such parent’s ancestor or descendant. The adopted child shall have the same such rights as to lineal and collateral kindred of either adoptive parent and the ancestors or descendants of such kindred, as the adoptive child has as to such parent, and the lineal and collateral kindred of either adoptive parent and the descendants of such kindred shall have the same such rights as to the adopted child and the child’s descendants, but only as to property of the adopted child acquired after the child’s adoption.
(c) In the construction of any instrument, whether will, deed, or otherwise, whether executed before or after August 24, 1995, and whether the testator or other party creating an interest by such instrument died before or after August 24, 1995, or before or after an adoption, a child so adopted and the descendants of such child are deemed included within the class created by any limitation contained in such instrument restricting a devise, bequest or conveyance to the lawful heirs, issue, children, descendants, or the like, as the case may be, of the adoptive parent, or of an ancestor or descendant of one (1) of them, and such adopted child shall be treated as a member of such class unless a contrary intention clearly shall appear by the terms of such instrument or unless the particular estate so limited shall have vested in interest and in possession in and as to the person or persons entitled thereto on August 24, 1995; provided, that this sentence shall not apply in the construction of any instrument as to any child who is over twenty-one (21) years of age at the time of such child’s adoption.
(d) “Contrary intention clearly shall appear,” as set forth in this section, shall not be found by any court to exist by use in such instrument of such terms as “issue,” “children” or similar legal terms, unless the instrument specifically states that adopted children are to be excluded from such class.
(e) An adopted child shall not inherit real or personal property from a biological parent or relative thereof when the relationship between them has been terminated by final order of adoption, nor shall such biological parent or relative thereof inherit from the adopted child. Notwithstanding subsection (a), if a parent of a child dies without the relationship of parent and child having been previously terminated and any other person thereafter adopts the child, the child’s right of inheritance from or through the deceased biological parent or any relative thereof shall be unaffected by the adoption.
(f) A final order of adoption of a child cannot require the adoptive parent to permit visitation by any other person, nor can the final order of adoption place any conditions on the adoption of the child by the adoptive parent. This statute does not prohibit the entry of an order enforcing or modifying a contract for post-adoption contact pursuant to § 36-1-145.
(g) The adoption of a child shall have no effect upon arrearages owed by an obligor of child support for that child that existed prior to the termination of parental rights or to that child’s adoption and that are owed by an obligor to any person or any governmental agency, nor shall it affect any other financial obligations of a person that may be related to the care of the adopted child prior to a surrender, termination of parental rights, or adoption involving that child.
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