Top 10 for Unmarried Dads in Florida
- Having your name on your child’s birth certificate in Florida does NOT give you any time sharing or decision-making rights to your child.
- You can be ordered to pay child support in Florida and still have NO rights to make decisions for your child or spend time with your child.
- When you file an action for Paternity to get a parenting plan in place and establish your rights, there is a very good chance you will get significant timesharing and decision-making rights.
- The only way that you will get credit for the time you spend with your child against your child support obligation (meaning to lower your payments) is to have a Court Order for timesharing.
- A mom can get child support backwards for 24 months before filing a Petition requesting support – this is called retroactive child support.
- You can get credit towards the retroactive child support for necessities you bought for the child and payments made to the other parent, but you must prove you made the payments.
- Always, always give the other parent money through a verifiable source like CashApp, Venmo, Zelle.
- Do not waste time filing to establish your rights to timesharing. If the mom has denied you access to the child, it is your responsibility to bring this to the Court attention. You must initiate the action to establish your rights.
- Until you have gone to Court, the Mother is free to parent as she likes, including relocating.
- You should never add your name to the birth certificate of a child you are not 100% positive is your – or you may end up paying or this child regardless of biology.
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