Florida Family Law · Attorney-reviewed

The move that happens before the order

It happens more than people expect: a parent moves the kids first and plans to sort out the legal paperwork later. Sometimes it’s urgency. Sometimes it’s the belief that once the kids are settled, a judge won’t make them move again.

That belief is usually wrong, and it can cost far more than the move itself was worth.

What Florida law actually requires before you go

Florida Statute §61.13001 requires written notice to the other parent before relocating a child’s principal residence more than 50 miles, or a written agreement, or a court order permitting the move. Sending a text message with a new address after the fact does not satisfy this. Neither does moving and hoping no one objects.

If you relocate without any of these in place, you’ve moved outside the boundaries the statute sets, regardless of how good your reasons were.

Why judges don’t forgive this easily

Courts take unauthorized relocation seriously because the statute exists specifically to prevent parents from creating facts on the ground that pressure a favorable outcome. A judge isn’t going to reward a parent for successfully relocating without permission just because the kids have now been in a new school for a while.

If anything, the unauthorized move becomes its own issue in the case, separate from whatever the underlying custody or relocation dispute already was.

It doesn’t just hurt your case — it follows the kids

An unauthorized relocation, once acknowledged in a filing or admitted in testimony, becomes part of the permanent record the court considers when evaluating that parent’s judgment and reliability going forward. It can undercut an otherwise strong relocation argument, even if the destination itself would have been approved through the proper process.

The kids end up caught in the middle of a credibility fight that didn’t need to happen.

If you already moved: damage control that actually works

If the move has already happened without authorization, the priority is getting in front of it — disclosing it honestly rather than letting it surface through cross-examination, and building the strongest possible case for why the current arrangement should stay in place going forward. Waiting for the other side to raise it in court is the worst version of this conversation.

An honest, proactive approach doesn’t erase the problem, but it’s a far better position than getting caught.

Florida Family Law · Attorney-reviewed

It’s not just “can I move” — it’s “can I take them”

Under Florida Statute §61.13001, a parent doesn’t need permission to move themselves anywhere. They need permission to move a child’s principal residence more than 50 miles away for 60 or more consecutive days, unless the other parent agrees in writing or a court signs off.

That distinction trips people up constantly. You’re always free to move. Taking the kids with you is the part that requires either agreement or a judge’s order.

The 11 factors, in plain English

Florida courts weigh eleven factors, but they boil down to a few real questions: Is this move genuinely good for the child, or is it primarily about the parent’s convenience or new relationship? What has each parent’s involvement actually looked like day to day, not on paper? Can the relationship with the parent staying behind survive the distance, and is the moving parent actually willing to make that happen?

Courts also look hard at each parent’s history of stability — housing, employment, school consistency — and whether the reasons given for the move are the real reasons or a story built for court.

What actually wins and loses these cases

The strongest relocation cases show a genuine, child-centered reason for the move — better schools, family support, a stable home — backed up by a track record of actually being the primary caregiver. The weakest cases lean on a new partner’s house as the whole justification, especially when there’s a pattern of frequent moves, job changes, or school disruptions beforehand.

Judges notice patterns. A parent who’s moved many times in a short span is going to have a harder time arguing this move is the one that finally brings stability.

The move has to be about the kids, not just a new life

You’re allowed to want a fresh start. But if the case is built entirely around what’s better for you, expect the other side — and the court — to ask why the children should absorb that disruption. The strongest arguments connect the dots between the parent’s new circumstances and a concrete, provable benefit to the child: better school ratings, a bigger support network, actual stability that’s been missing.

Vague talk about quality of life without specifics rarely carries the day.

What to do before you pack a single box

If you’re the one who wants to move, get the notice requirements right before you do anything else — written notice to the other parent, filed correctly, before the move, not after. If you’re opposing a move, start documenting your involvement now: school pickups, medical appointments, the day-to-day proof that the current arrangement is working.

Either way, the case is won or lost on documentation, not intentions.

Florida Family Law · Attorney-reviewed

Yes, a relocation order can be undone

Most people assume once a judge approves a move, it’s final. It isn’t. Florida courts can — and do — vacate relocation orders, sometimes months after a family has already resettled hundreds of miles away.

When that happens, the order doesn’t just stop the move going forward. It can require the children to return to where they came from.

Why courts vacate relocation rulings

A relocation order gets vacated when the original ruling didn’t properly work through the required legal analysis — most commonly, when a judge’s findings on the statutory relocation factors were incomplete or didn’t hold up on review. Florida’s relocation statute requires a genuine factor-by-factor analysis, not a general sense that the move seemed reasonable.

If that analysis is missing or thin, the order is vulnerable, no matter how settled the family has become in the new location.

What “vacated” actually means for the family

Vacating a relocation order resets the clock. The prior arrangement — before the move — is typically what governs again, at least temporarily, while a new, more thorough order gets drafted.

For the kids, that can mean returning to a prior home, school, and routine after already adjusting to a new one. It’s disruptive, which is exactly why courts don’t take vacating these orders lightly — and exactly why the original order needs to be built right the first time.

The court doesn’t let go of jurisdiction over a teenager

One detail that surprises people: courts will maintain jurisdiction over a child right up to age 18, even a teen just months from turning 18. A pending relocation dispute doesn’t just evaporate because a child is close to aging out.

If your case involves an older teen, don’t assume the court will treat the relocation question as nearly moot. It won’t.

Building an order that survives the second time

When a relocation order gets vacated and sent back, the redo isn’t optional — it has to actually address every factor the first order missed. That means a real, documented analysis of each parent’s stability, the child’s ties to community and school, the reasons for the move, and the practical impact on the other parent’s relationship with the child.

A shortcut the second time around just invites a second reversal.

Florida Family Law · Attorney-reviewed

A different kind of divorce math

Every divorce involving kids requires a parenting plan and a support calculation. When a child has special needs — developmental delays, a disability, ongoing therapy — both of those documents have to work harder.

The standard templates for timesharing and support were built around a typical child. They don’t automatically account for a child who needs speech therapy several times a week, or a parent who can’t simply hand off care every other weekend without disrupting routines that took years to build.

Why 50/50 isn’t always the right starting point

Equal timesharing is the default Florida courts lean toward, and for good reason — in most cases, it serves the child. But a special-needs child’s stability often depends on consistency: the same home, the same routines, the same therapists, the same school.

That doesn’t mean the other parent gets shut out. It means the parenting plan needs to be built around what actually keeps the child stable, with honest input from both parents about who is prepared to provide day-to-day care.

Building decision-making authority into the plan

Medical decisions, therapy providers, school placement, and IEP meetings all need a clear decision-maker in the plan. When one parent has historically handled these responsibilities and the other has stepped back, the parenting plan should reflect that reality, not paper over it.

Leaving decision-making vague to be worked out later is one of the most common mistakes we see. It creates conflict exactly when the child can least afford it.

Support numbers have to account for the real cost of care

Speech therapy, occupational therapy, specialized childcare, and medical costs beyond standard insurance coverage all belong in the support conversation. Florida’s child support guidelines allow for these costs to be built into the order — but only if someone puts real numbers in front of the court.

If you’re the parent managing daily care, don’t assume the standard guideline number covers what your child actually needs. Get the actual costs documented.

When one parent steps back: protecting the child anyway

Sometimes one parent, for whatever reason, isn’t equipped to take on day-to-day care of a child with significant needs. That’s a hard reality, but it’s better addressed directly in the parenting plan than left as an unspoken assumption.

A plan that’s honest about who is doing the caregiving — and pays for it accordingly — protects the child far better than one built on wishful thinking about shared responsibility that isn’t actually shared.

Florida Family Law · Attorney-reviewed

The myth that prenups are only for the rich

People picture prenups as something for celebrities and trust-fund kids. In practice, they’re one of the most useful tools available to anyone entering a marriage with assets, a business, retirement accounts, or kids from a prior relationship.

A prenup isn’t about planning to fail. It’s about deciding the rules while you’re both calm, instead of leaving a judge to decide them while you’re not.

What a prenup actually locks in — and what it can’t

A well-drafted, enforceable Florida prenuptial agreement under §61.079 typically does one job extremely well: it defines what stays separate property. Assets brought into the marriage — and the growth on those assets — can be protected from division, even after years of marriage.

That single provision can eliminate most of the fighting in a divorce. If the retirement account and the investments are already spoken for, there’s often only one real asset left to negotiate: the marital home built together.

Why this matters the day you actually divorce

We’ve seen prenups do exactly what they’re supposed to do — turn what could have been a drawn-out asset fight into a two-issue conversation. When the prenup is clean and enforceable, couples can move straight to the parts that actually need negotiating: parenting time and support.

That’s the real value. Not preventing divorce. Shrinking it.

The one thing a prenup will never decide: your kids

Here’s what a prenup cannot do, no matter how well it’s drafted: decide parenting time, decision-making authority, or child support. Florida courts will not enforce a provision that predetermines custody or caps support below what a child actually needs — that’s decided based on the child’s circumstances at the time of divorce, not an agreement signed years earlier.

So if children are involved, expect a prenup to simplify the money conversation and leave the parenting conversation for later, on its own terms.

How to know if your prenup will hold up

Enforceability comes down to a few consistent things: full financial disclosure at the time of signing, no coercion or unequal bargaining power, and terms that aren’t unconscionable. A prenup signed the night before the wedding, with no financial disclosure, is far more vulnerable than one negotiated months in advance with both parties represented.

If you’re heading into divorce and have a prenup, the first question isn’t what it says — it’s whether it will hold up. That answer changes everything about how the rest of the case gets handled.

Florida Family Law · Attorney-reviewed

The one number that can blow up your child support case

Florida child support isn’t calculated off a pay stub. It’s calculated off total income — and when one parent’s income is complicated, that single number becomes the whole fight.

We see this constantly: one parent has a clean W-2, the other has retirement pay plus an investment portfolio nobody has fully disclosed. The gap between what a parent says they make and what they actually make can be the difference between a support order that works and one that doesn’t.

Florida law counts all income, not just the paycheck

Under Florida Statute §61.30, gross income for child support includes far more than salary. It includes bonuses, commissions, disability benefits, retirement and pension payments, rental income, and — critically — investment income, including dividends, interest, and capital gains.

If a parent has a brokerage account generating six figures a year on top of a stated retirement income, that account’s earnings belong in the calculation. Florida courts don’t let a parent’s income disappear into an account just because it isn’t a paycheck.

What total income actually includes

A parent drawing $120,000 a year from a pension might also be sitting on a portfolio that throws off another $80,000 to $100,000 in annual income. Combined, that’s a completely different support number than the pension figure alone.

Tax returns, 1099s, and brokerage statements are where this gets resolved. Until those documents are in hand, any support number built on the stated income alone is a guess — and usually a low one.

A real example: the $1,000-a-month gap

We’ve worked cases where using only a parent’s disclosed retirement income produced a support figure of roughly $200 a month. Once total income — including the undisclosed portfolio — was factored in using a reasonable estimate, that number jumped to $1,100 to $1,300 a month.

That’s not a rounding error. That’s the difference between a child getting the support they need and going without.

Your three options when a co-parent’s income is unclear

You generally have three paths. First, negotiate using a reasonable estimated income and put it in writing, accepting some risk in exchange for speed. Second, bring in a neutral financial expert — a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst — to review the documents and issue an impartial opinion both sides agree to honor. Third, set a support floor based on undisputed income now, with a court-ordered adjustment once full financial discovery is complete.

None of these are wrong. They’re trade-offs between speed and accuracy, and the right one depends on how much is at stake and how much conflict you can tolerate.

Don’t let “keep it simple” cost your child real support

Wanting a fast, amicable divorce is a good instinct. But fast and fair aren’t always the same thing when income is hidden behind retirement statements and brokerage accounts.

You can still move quickly. You just need someone looking at the actual numbers before you sign anything final.