The Houston Family Law Blog


Home Paternity Tests Now Being Sold on the Market

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In many family law cases involving child support, adoption, child custody and visitation, and inheritance, there's a need to legally establish paternity. A paternity test establishes who the biological father is through DNA testing. Texas family law attorneys will often get involved in a case where there's a paternity dispute, but now there's a new home paternity test called Identigene that makes DNA testing easier than ever, because it's sold over the counter at drug stores and pharmacies.

DNATesting.com states that with Identigene, a DNA sample is collected from each paternity test participant using a cheek swab and that the swabs are tested by an accredited DNA paternity testing laboratory. Participants are usually able to view the paternity results online within 3-5 business days.

The Identigene DNA collection kit cost $30 and the laboratory fee is $119, making the total cost just under $150. Yet it's important to realize that this is the cost of a home paternity test and not a legal paternity test. The results Identigene's home paternity test cannot usually be used as evidence of paternity in family court proceedings, because a person can easily tamper with the lab results.

Yet Identigene does offer an option to "upgrade" a home paternity test to a legal paternity test, where a DNA collector will witness the collection of the samples and verify the identity of each person participating in the legal paternity test. The DNA samples are then tracked from the time of collection until they arrive at the DNA testing laboratory. The results of this type of paternity test are court admissible.

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