Rule 3.803.Financial Reports, Subsequent Orders

Adoption files carry a money disclosure track alongside the placement track: an itemized accounting of expenses, verified statements supporting it, and an order approving the fees disclosed. MCR 3.803 keeps that paperwork from duplicating itself and keeps the waiting periods attached to it from stalling the case.

Updating the accounting without redoing it

Subrule (A)(1) allows the update of the accounting filed under MCL 710.54(8) to include by reference the total expenses itemized in the accounting required by MCL 710.54(7). The second filing does not have to reproduce the first one line by line; it can point back to it.

Subrule (A)(2) does the same work for verified statements. A verified statement filed under MCL 710.54(7) need not be filed again, with one condition. If, at the time of the update required by MCL 710.54(8), a statement no longer reflects the facts at that time, it has to be filed again. The test is accuracy as of the update, not the passage of time, so an unchanged statement stays on file and a stale one gets replaced.

One fee order, entered after the update

Subrule (B)(1) settles a sequencing question. Only one order approving the fees disclosed in the financial reports by MCL 710.54(7) need be entered, rather than one at each disclosure stage, and it must be entered after the filing required by MCL 710.54(8). The fee order comes after the update, not before.

The waiting periods do not block the substantive orders

Subrules (B)(2) and (B)(3) release the two orders that matter most to the family from the disclosure clock:

• Under subrule (B)(2), the order placing the child may be entered before the elapse of the 7-day period required by MCL 710.54(7).
• Under subrule (B)(3), the final order of adoption may be entered before the elapse of the 21-day period required by MCL 710.54(8).

Read together with subrule (B)(1), these provisions draw a line between two different things. The fee approval order is the one tied to the disclosure sequence and has to follow the update filing. The placement order and the final order of adoption are not, and neither has to wait out the statutory period that governs its corresponding financial filing.

The practical effect is a rule about economy. It spares a second round of identical paperwork, requires only one fee order, and lets the placement order and the final order of adoption be entered without waiting out the two statutory periods, while leaving the disclosure obligations themselves untouched.