What Parenting Courses Are and What They Are Not

The official name for Florida’s legally required parenting classes is the Parent Education and Family Stabilization Course. Florida requires these courses for all parents of minor children, except those parents who are peacefully married to each other. When a couple who has minor children together divorces, both parents must complete a parenting course before the divorce can be legally finalized. Likewise, when a man establishes legal paternity of a child, and the child’s mother is not the man’s wife, both parents must complete a parenting course.

Court-ordered parenting courses are not a punishment. They are also not an alternative to some greater burden, the way that courts sometimes order addiction treatment programs instead of incarceration for people convicted of drug possession. The course is much more similar to the one-day course on traffic laws that all Florida drivers must take before taking the test to get a driver’s license. The idea is that co-parenting is a responsibility and a privilege, like driving. Like the driver safety course, the parenting course is only one day long. In fact, Florida law requires the course to be a minimum of four hours. The course typically costs between $18 and $39.

If a court requires you to take a parenting course, do not think of it as a punishment. Your ex-spouse also has to take the same course, as do all divorced parents in Florida. Besides, you and your ex do not have to attend the course together.

Bundza & Rodriguez Can Help with Child Custody and Co-Parenting

All divorced parents need to take parenting courses in Florida, but every family is unique.  Contact Bundza & Rodriguez, P.A. in Daytona Beach, Florida for help reaching an agreement to raise your children with your ex-spouse.

Resource:

flcourts.org/core/fileparse.php/293/urlt/995a.pdf

Certainly, it takes more than DNA to make a family, and Florida acknowledges this. Case in point, adoption and surrogacy are very simple legal matters and rarely involve litigation. Even legally establishing paternity does not always require DNA paternity testing. If unmarried parents want to gain legal recognition of the father’s relationship to the child, all they have to do is submit a Voluntary Acknowledgement of Paternity; the judge usually does not order a DNA test.

Parker v. Parker: A Complicated Case Involving Paternity Fraud

The Parker v. Parker case raises several issues highlighting the ambiguity with which Florida law regards the definition of paternity. Richard and Margaret Parker divorced when their son was a toddler, and the court ordered Parker to pay child support. Sixteen months after the divorce, Richard had fallen behind on his support payments, and he argued in court that he doubted that he was the child’s biological father. DNA testing revealed that Richard was not the child’s father. The court ordered Richard to continue to pay child support despite the lack of genetic relationship. If Richard had wanted to disprove his paternity, he should have done so when the divorce was filed; the statute of limitations for challenging paternity in a divorce is one year from the date of filing. The court argued that, since Richard waited until sixteen months after the divorce, his motivation for challenging his paternity was simply to get out of paying child support. Up until this point, he had always acknowledged the child as his son.

To the Florida courts, raising a child has as much to do with paternity as sharing half of the child’s DNA does. Another reason why courts are so strict about challenges to paternity goes back to a precedent from the pre-DNA testing days. Before DNA paternity tests were available, it was virtually impossible to establish biological paternity with any certainty. Challenges to paternity necessarily involved the ugliest of ugly accusations, with little hope of resolution. Therefore, courts often refused to entertain them.

Forcing a man to pay child support when he is not genetically related to the child and is not the partner of the child’s mother seems unfair to many people. Therefore, Florida lawyers are looking for solutions to avoid cases like Parker’s from happening in the future.

Let Us Help You Today

The attorneys at our office in Daytona Beach, Florida are experienced in dealing with family law cases about paternity. Contact Bundza & Rodriguez, P.A. if you have been a victim of paternity fraud.

Resources:

scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15319835621860114145&hl=en&as_sdt=2,48

leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0742/Sections/0742.10.html

Why Establish Paternity?

Being a child’s legal father entitles you to certain legal rights that merely being involved in the child’s life, or even merely being the child’s biological father, does not. If you separate from the child’s mother, or even if you were never in a long-term relationship with her, you are entitled to a share of physical custody and legal custody of the child. Exactly what your rights to involvement with the child will be can be specified on a family by family basis in the parenting plan. “Physical custody” means time in which the child lives with you, and “legal custody” means the right to make certain decisions on the minor child’s behalf. Of course, with rights come obligations. The legal father must also bear certain financial responsibility for the child until he or she reaches legal adulthood. If you are not living with the child’s mother, the court could require you to pay child support.

Ways to Establish Legal Paternity

• Marriage to the Mother – If the mother is married at the time of the child’s birth, her husband is automatically granted the status of legal father.

• Voluntary Acknowledgement of Paternity – If the mother and father are not married to each other when the child is born, they can file a Voluntary Acknowledgement of Paternity with the court, in which they request that the court grant the man the status of legal father. This document becomes legally binding 60 days after you file it.

• Default – If the child’s mother petitions to court to declare you the legal father, and you do not appear in court when requested to do so, the judge can declare you the legal father even in your absence.

• DNA Testing – If the other requests to have you declared the child’s legal father, but your refuse on the grounds that you believe that you are not the child’s biological father, the court can order a DNA test. The test consists of obtaining DNA samples from the child, the mother, and the alleged father. The sample can be obtained through a blood draw or by removing skin cells from the inside of the cheek with a cotton swab.

Contact Bundza & Rodriguez for Help with Paternity Issues

Being a father is about more than having 23 chromosomes in common with a child. Contact Bundza & Rodriguez in Daytona Beach, Florida to help you establish paternity or lack thereof.

Resource:

flcourts.org/core/fileparse.php/293/urlt/995a.pdf

What Is Equitable Distribution?

“Equitable” just means “fair.”  Therefore, the doctrine of equitable distribution requires judges to divide property between divorcing spouses in a way that is fair.  Equitable does not always mean equal. Judges take into consideration how much income each spouse obtained during the marriage. They also factor in the non-financial contributions of each spouse that made it possible for the other spouse to dedicate as much time as he or she did to the pursuit of wealth. They also consider the financial needs of each spouse and each party’s earning potential.

Importantly, Florida law requires divorcing couples and the judges deciding their cases to divide the couple’s property based on what is owned jointly and what each spouse owns individually. Marital property is money and other assets that belong to the couple jointly. Non-marital property is what each spouse owns by himself or herself. Only in extreme circumstances would someone have to surrender some of his or her non-marital property to his or her spouse in a divorce.

Marital and Non-Marital Property

The following are examples of possessions clearly designated as marital property:

• Bank accounts held in the name of both spouses
• A house or other piece of real estate with both spouses’ names on the title or deed
• Any asset acquired or debt incurred by either spouse, unless a written document at the time the asset was acquired or the debt was incurred specifies that it belongs to only one spouse

The following are examples of possessions clearly designated as non-marital property:

• Money or other assets inherited by one spouse
• Bank accounts held by one spouse since before the marriage, unless that spouse used money from those accounts to contribute financially to the household

The issue of marital and non-marital property is not always clear-cut. Something that one spouse owned before the marriage can become marital property, based on how that spouse uses the asset during the marriage. Likewise, if it can be shown that one spouse intentionally misused or destroyed some of the marital property during or in preparation for the divorce, it will have a negative impact on the share of the remaining marital property that spouse will be awarded in the divorce decree.

Contact Bundza & Rodriguez with Questions About Florida Property Division

Although basic guidelines are available online, it can be difficult for non-lawyers to tell how property should be divided. Bundza & Rodriguez, P.A. is a Daytona Beach, Florida law firm whose attorneys are skilled in property division. Contact Bundza & Rodriguez to see if your property was divided fairly in your divorce.

When the parents have a fundamental disagreement about one or more items on the parenting plan, it is up to the judge to make a decision, with which the parents must comply. Florida courts always consider the best interest of the children when making any decisions related to child custody and visitation. When an item on the parenting plan is in dispute, each parent must convince the court that his or her preferred arrangement is in the children’s best interest.

What a Florida Parenting Plan Includes

The parenting plan attempts to resolve any conflict that might arise regarding the children’s upbringing before the conflict starts. It specifies which parent or parents may make decisions relating to the children’s education and non-emergency medical care. It contains provisions about whether each parent may enroll the children in extracurricular activities. The parenting plan also requires the parent (or the court) to specify whether one parent may choose a babysitter or daycare provider for the children without the other parent’s approval.

Perhaps the parenting plan is at its most detailed when it comes to how much time the children spend with each parent. One item on the document asks how many nights per year the children are to spend with each parent. It also gives parents the opportunity to state formally that the children are to spend a certain amount of time each year with a grandparent or other relative. Since holiday visitation can be such a source of disagreement, the parenting plan requires the parents to decide how much time children will spend with each parent during each winter, spring, and summer break.

What a Florida Parenting Plan Does Not Include

Form 12.995(a) assumes that the parents live within 50 miles of each other and that they will continue to reside in that same 50-mile radius. Therefore, it does not contain provisions for what will happen if one parent moves more than 50 miles away. When the custodial parent moves far away, he or she must first get the court’s approval. Then the parents must file a long distance parenting plan, Form 12.995(c). Parenting plans also do not contain information about child support.

Contact Bundza & Rodriguez with Questions About Florida Parenting Plans

If need assistance crafting a parenting plan or have other family law issues in Daytona Beach, we can help. Don’t hesitate to reach out to our skilled attorneys at Bundza & Rodriguez for the professional assistance you need.

Resource:

flcourts.org/core/fileparse.php/293/urlt/995a.pdf