Changing a child's surname SA

Hi everyone..

So it has always been on the cards for DH and I to change DS's name "officially" after a few years when we had money to back us up if my ex wont sign the permission to allow it to happen.

I had my son to my ex nearly 8 years ago. We split when I was about 5 months pregnant. Did not hear from him and told him he could be at the birth. He was at the birth, I visited him with DS when he was 1 week old adn then got 2 visits from him, one with his parents on his 1st birthday.. nothing since. So no contact for nearly 7 years total now.

His mother used to send presents on easter, birthday and christmas to my mums postal address but these stopped a few years ago now when my mum sent her a small letter saying please do not send any correspondence for my son to my address anymore as DD no longer lives at this address.

Now I thought this would prompt a response, it had nothing to do with me and was awaiting a phone call after for a request of my new postal address.. keeping in mind my mobile number has been the same since my very first mobile.. so she would have this.

So DS has been enrolled in school/kindy etc as our surname. Met DH when DS was 10 months old and got engaged after a year and he went by our surname since that date since we knew we were getting married!

So now we want to go ahead and change his name officially.

I am thinking of trying to contact ex by phone, asking him if he is willing to sign the form. If not, taking it to court.

Does anyone have any exp here.. what sort of court costs we are talking about? I know he wouldnt have a snowballs chance in hell of not letting it happen considering I havent heard from him in all this time......

DH has been delaying it because he is petrified he will start going for visitation or something like that.. We sought legal advice when DS was maybe 2 years and he said "dont poke a sleeping lion" basically.. not until a few years has passed.. but he didnt say how long.

Its just now our family is complete.. I would like it to all be "official" with the official name change for DS...

TIA grin

Hi Simone24,
I have just Changed my DS surname through the courts. I contacted Births , Deaths and Marriages in Adelaide got all the forms, followed instructions. Went to local court, spoke to magistrate who asked me to contact my ex for his input. I was unsure where he was as have not seen him for 13 years (there are restraining orders so i contacted a lawyer to contact him.) The magistrate also asked to speak to my DS and ask him what he wanted his surname to be. It all came down to giving my ex an opportunity to have a say in what he felt about it (My Ds had used my new husbands name for about 6-7 years.) My Lawyer wrote a letter to my ex, registered post, no response from him so the courts granted the change of name. All up with Lawyers, courts fees and new birth certificate it was around $800.00.
Hope this info may be helpful.