Florida Custody Forms & Panic‑Search Guides
These resources focus on Florida time‑sharing documentation, modification basics, and evidence‑ready organization. Educational only - not legal advice.
For form checklists and terminology, use the Florida forms index.
Florida procedure overviews
Statewide orientation: choose the lane that fits your case (custody modification, parenting time, child support, or enforcement) before you open a checklist page. Checklists live on the Florida forms index.
Start here (fastest wins)
National and cross-topic MCC tools (support only; not a substitute for Florida procedure pages above).
Forms index
12.905, 12.995, 12.902 and related checklists with plan-versus-modify discipline called out on each page.
Open Florida forms hubEvidence & clarity
Panic-search visitors need simple, repeatable structure: logs, timelines, and clean narratives.
Declaration and timeline resources are linked in Start here (fastest wins) above.
Enforcement / denied parenting time
If parenting time is being denied or disrupted, start with documentation and a clean timeline.
Relevant Florida law
The statutes and appellate decisions below are the ones Florida courts actually apply here. Educational orientation only — not legal advice. Read the source before you rely on it.
Statutes
- Fla. Stat. § 61.13 — Support of Children; Parenting and Time-Sharing; Powers of Court
Makes the best interests of the child the primary consideration for parental responsibility and time-sharing, and requires a substantial and material change in circumstances, plus a best-interests finding, to modify an existing parenting plan or time-sharing schedule.
- Fla. Stat. § 61.13(4) — Failure to Honor the Time-Sharing Schedule
Where a parent refuses to honor the other parent’s time-sharing rights, § 61.13(4)(c) directs the court to award “a sufficient amount of extra time-sharing to compensate for the time-sharing missed,” and it may order the noncomplying parent to pay reasonable court costs and attorney’s fees, attend an approved parenting course, perform community service, bear the financial burden of promoting contact where the parents live more than 60 miles apart, modify the parenting plan if that is in the child’s best interests, or “impose any other reasonable sanction.” Under § 61.13(4)(d) a violator “may be punished by contempt of court or other remedies as the court deems appropriate.”
- Fla. Stat. § 61.13001 — Parental Relocation With a Child
Requires a parent who wants to relocate with a child to file and serve a petition to relocate; the relocating parent must first prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the move is in the child’s best interest, after which the burden shifts to the objecting parent.
- Fla. Stat. § 61.30 — Child Support Guidelines
Establishes Florida’s child support guidelines, under which the guideline amount based on the parents’ combined net income presumptively sets the support the court must order.
Key cases
- Arthur v. Arthur, 54 So. 3d 454 (Fla. 2010)
A court cannot make a “prospective” best-interests determination that authorizes a parent to relocate with the child at a future date; the propriety of relocation must be decided on the circumstances at the time of the final hearing, not predicted in advance.
- Wade v. Hirschman, 903 So. 2d 928 (Fla. 2005)
The substantial-change-in-circumstances test governs modification of all custody arrangements, including rotating or shared custody; a court modifying custody applies that test rather than re-deciding custody as if making an initial determination.
- Warner v. Warner, 692 So. 2d 266 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997)
To impute income to a parent for child support under Fla. Stat. § 61.30(2)(b), the court must first find the parent’s unemployment or underemployment is voluntary, then make specific findings — based on the parent’s recent work history, occupational qualifications, and prevailing earnings in the community — of the parent’s probable earnings and the source of the imputed income; imputing income without those findings is reversible.
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Get StartedGeneral support (not Florida-specific)
Templates and methods that help in many states. Use Florida procedure overviews first when the question is modification versus enforcement.
MyCustodyCoach is not a law firm. Court rules, fees, and form versions change by county; confirm what applies to your case with official court resources or counsel you hire.