Legal Question in Family Law in Florida

I am the single mother of a 3 year old autistic boy. His father does not want to be involved in his life, not paying child support and recently moved to another state (Nevada). He told me he was moving two days prior to the move. He has not seen our son in 6 months, before this he was only seeing him every three to four months for 2 to 3 hours when he lived 8 minutes from my son and I. We do not have a parenting plan, when I tried get one, he stated he wanted nothing with our son. He refuses to go through the court for anything. We do not have a child support order even though I applied for child support through the department of revenue on February 2011. He was giving 400 dollars for support but stopped 19 months ago. The department of revenue has done absolutely nothing, they tried to serve him at work but he was not there because he worked nights and they refused to serve him after five pm. I gave them all the information I knew, and they have yet to contact him. Now he has moved. He is telling people that I refuse to let him see his son and that I am refusing to accept child support. Which is not true. I have done everything possible to get him involved in his life and he just refuses. Because of my income I do not qualify for any help. We were never married and I understand that I have primary custody of our son because of that. His father is on the birth certificate and my son has his name. My questions are the following:

1. How can I get full custody of my son? i know that right now I pretty much have it. But in the event that I want to travel out of the country on vacation or get a passport I need his permission. Also, I don't want him in the future to try to come back and take my son from me although due to his track record with our son that is very unlikely.

2. I want to change my son's name. I am concerned a judge wont grant this because since he is refusing to cooperate with anything and now lives in another state there is no way to serve him.

3. I recently bought a house, I am concerned that if something happens to me, the house will go to my son and since he is a minor with special needs he can take over the house since he is his legal guardian through the birth certificate or does he need to request custody through the court for that?

4.Also, if I die, how can I prevent him from getting custody?

I pretty much have no idea of what to do. This man is not in our son's life, not paying child support, not contributing or cooperating. I just want full rights to my son and name change, and child support.


Asked on 7/06/12, 11:05 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
R. Jason de Groot R. Jason de Groot, P.A.

1. You would want to hire an attorney and sue for paternity. In the paternity you may want to request sole parental responsibility, but let's leave that up to the attorney who you hire. You cannot avoid the father later claiming that he should have the son, but it is highly unlikely that he would do that. Child support will be sought in the paternity.

2. You will need the father's consent to the name change.

3. This is complicated. The best thing to do is probably make out a will and leave the home to a responsible adult relative as well as appoint that person guardian of the person and property of the child.

4. You cannot prevent the father from getting custody if you die, but he probably would not seek it.

It is horrible that the department has not been more helpful. You will need to hire a private attorney to get something done. If I can be of further assistance, email me.

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Answered on 7/06/12, 11:51 am


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