Family law reaches the most personal parts of your life, and Florida’s rules don’t always line up with what people expect. This page pulls together plain answers on divorce, custody, child support, and the agreements couples sign before and during marriage. Use it to get your bearings before you make a decision or sit down with a Tampa, FL family law attorney. Every topic links to a focused guide, and the state resources further down point you to the offices, courts, and hotlines you may need along the way. The McKinney Law Group built this library so Florida families can act from a place of knowledge instead of guesswork.
One thing to settle early is residency. To file for divorce in Florida, at least one spouse has to have lived in the state for six months before the petition goes in. You can prove it with a driver’s license, a voter registration card, or a state ID. Members of the military stationed here are generally treated as residents even without the full six months. Where you file matters too, since each county runs its own family court, sets its own filing fees, and uses its own local procedures on top of the statewide rules. The guides below speak to Florida law as a whole, and our office works with families across the Tampa Bay region and beyond.
Understanding Divorce in Florida
Florida is a no-fault state, which means you don’t have to prove your spouse did anything wrong to end a marriage. Under Florida Statutes section 61.052, a judge grants a dissolution once the court finds the marriage is irretrievably broken. That single rule shapes almost everything that follows, from how fast a case moves to how much fault even matters. Bad behavior during the marriage rarely changes the outcome on its own, though it can surface when the case touches money or the children, such as when one spouse wasted marital assets or a parent’s conduct affects the kids.
A good starting point is the difference between fault and no-fault grounds for divorce, which still carries weight in a few limited situations. If you’re not certain divorce is the right step yet, it helps to compare legal separation and divorce in Florida, since Florida handles separation differently than many other states. For marriages that were never legally valid to begin with, the guide on when an annulment applies lays out the narrow grounds and the process.
The money questions come next, and they’re where cases often get complicated. Florida divides property through equitable distribution, a system built around what’s fair rather than a flat fifty-fifty split. The state decides spousal support and alimony under rules the legislature rewrote in recent years, so older assumptions about permanent alimony no longer hold. Couples who planned ahead can rely on their prenuptial and postnuptial agreements to keep certain assets separate from the start. When spouses can still talk to each other, mediation in a Florida divorce often settles things faster and for far less money than a trial. That’s a big part of why the gap between a contested and an uncontested divorce can mean the difference between a few months and well over a year.
Child Custody and Support
Florida law no longer uses the word custody in its statutes, but the decisions behind it haven’t changed. Courts build every order around the best interests of the child, and parents share both time and responsibility unless there’s a real reason not to. Judges look at a long list of factors when they weigh those interests, including each parent’s history of involvement, the stability of each home, the child’s school and community ties, and each parent’s willingness to support the child’s relationship with the other parent. None of these alone decides a case. The court reads them together.
Start with the types of child custody in Florida, including legal versus physical custody and how judges weigh sole arrangements against shared ones. The guide on how child support is calculated walks through the income shares formula, the factors that move the final number up or down, and what enforcement looks like when payments stop coming. A workable parenting plan sets the schedule, the holidays, and who gets to decide what about the children’s lives. And because circumstances rarely stay frozen, the page on modifying custody and support orders covers what counts as a substantial change and how courts handle a parent who wants to relocate with the kids.
The Divorce Process in Florida
Knowing the order of events takes some of the fear out of filing. Most cases move through the same stages, even when the pace differs from one family to the next. After the petition is filed and served, both spouses exchange financial information through mandatory disclosure, and either side can ask the court for temporary relief on support, time-sharing, or use of the home while the case is pending. Many cases then head to mediation before a judge ever hears them, and the ones that settle there never see a trial at all.
If you’re still weighing your options, the guide on when to hire a family law attorney helps you spot the point where handling things alone stops making sense. From there, read what to expect during divorce proceedings for a step-by-step view of filing, financial disclosure, and resolution. Check how long a Florida divorce takes so the timeline doesn’t catch you off guard, especially if children or contested assets are involved. Protecting your finances during divorce rounds out this section with practical steps on documentation, credit, and the tax issues that surprise people after the judgment. Cases with substantial wealth add another layer entirely, which is why many people start with a Tampa high-asset divorce lawyer who knows how to value and trace complex property.
Protecting Yourself and Your Family
Some situations can’t wait for the normal pace of a case. Florida courts can move quickly when someone’s safety is on the line or when a parent needs legal standing recognized. An injunction can be entered the same day it’s requested, on a temporary basis, with a fuller hearing set soon after. Acting early protects both you and your case.
The page on domestic violence and orders of protection explains the types of injunctions available, how to request one, and what happens when an order gets violated. If you and your child’s other parent never married, the guide on parental rights for unmarried parents covers establishing paternity and the custody and support rights that follow. Service members and their spouses face a separate set of rules around pensions, deployment, and federal protections, and a Tampa military divorce lawyer can address the parts of those cases that civilian divorces never touch.
Florida Government Resources
Some of what you need won’t come from a law firm at all. These state and national offices handle records, enforcement, and emergency help, and they’re worth bookmarking early.
- The Florida Bar lets you confirm an attorney’s standing and reach a statewide lawyer referral service.
- The Florida Child Support Program, run by the Department of Revenue, establishes, modifies, and enforces support orders.
- The Florida Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics issues certified marriage and divorce certificates.
- The Florida Department of Children and Families oversees child welfare, adult protective services, and family programs across the state.
- Florida’s 24-hour Domestic Violence Hotline connects survivors to local certified centers, day or night, at 1-800-500-1119.
- Florida Law Help points lower-income residents toward free and reduced-cost civil legal aid by county and topic.
Local Florida Resources
When you’re ready to file, or when you need support beyond the courtroom, local offices and community programs do much of the heavy lifting.
The guide to Florida family courts and filing for divorce covers court locations, the forms you’ll need, and what filing actually costs. For everything that sits outside the legal process, Florida resources for families in transition gathers shelters, counseling services, co-parenting classes, support groups, and financial assistance programs in one place. You can also pull statewide self-help forms and plain-language instructions through the Florida Courts system, which is useful whether or not you hire counsel.
Talk to a Florida Family Law Attorney Today
Information helps, but at some point you want someone in your corner who knows your case inside out. The McKinney Law Group has handled Florida family law for years, led by founding partner Damien McKinney, who has practiced marital and family law for nearly two decades and earned recognition as a Super Lawyers Rising Star since 2012. Attorney Stephanie Koether adds further depth across divorce, custody, and support matters. Together they handle divorce, alimony, child custody, prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, and high-asset cases throughout the Tampa Bay area. Reach a Tampa family attorney, a St. Petersburg family lawyer, or a Clearwater family lawyer depending on where you live, and contact our office to schedule a consultation about your situation.