New Family Code
Ling Kliment
The Florida State Courts System's Self-Help Center is your online guide to help direct you through the court system. The role of the self-help center staff is to direct interested individuals to the self-help website where they can explore resources needed to represent themselves, access the courts, and other essential resources. Self-Help staff cannot provide legal interpretations or advice. The self-help website includes family law forms approved by the Florida Supreme Court. Additional resources include a directory of local self-help centers, web links to free and low cost legal aid, mediator search capabilities, and guardianship resources.
Self-help programs and court staff function under certain service limitations. For example, they can assist you administratively and procedurally but are not able to act as your lawyer or give you legal advice. This disclaimer sets out the limit of services from self-help program and court staff.
Forms Contain Fillable Form Fields: To complete forms on your mobile device or computer, you must download Adobe Acrobat Reader. Fillable form fields in the PDF allows you to complete forms by typing information into the form fields. If fillable form fields ARE NOT VISIBLE when you open the PDF form, you do not have Adobe Reader installed. We recommend that you install Adobe Acrobat Reader or download the reader from an app store.
The Family Law Section is the principal statewide organization of family law attorneys, and is one of the most active sections in the WSBA. The Section is devoted to improving the profession and practice of family law, to the benefit of its members and other family law professionals, the judiciary, and the general public.
The Family Law Section offers many resources and benefits for members. On this page you will find information about the section, upcoming events and offerings, as well as information about the section's executive committee.
We are proud to announce the official launch of the new WSBA Family Law Section Website. It is designed to enhance communication and engagement within our family law community, and to serve as a valuable tool for staying informed.
The WSBA Family Law Section Executive Committee generally conducts meetings via Zoom on the third Saturday of each month from 8 a.m. to noon. Please contact committee members and/or the section event calendar for specific details about their upcoming meeting dates.
The section's list serve is administered by the Family Law Section. To join the list serve, please contact and forward proof of membership to the webmaster. For general section questions, please send your email address and bar number to sect...@wsba.org.
Most circuit courts have walk-in centers where you can get free legal help from lawyers, paralegals, or court staff. Only lawyers give legal advice. These centers help with family law cases including child custody, child support, child access, divorce, name change, domestic violence and paternity. Some centers help with adoption and guardianship cases.
Center staff CAN explain family law processes, answer questions, help with court forms, and help you open, answer, or move forward your family case. They CAN NOT represent you in court, file paperwork for you, or help you if you have a lawyer. Each center operates independently, and most have a first come/first served sign-up process.
An action filed in a family law case may be filed to seek a divorce or legal separation or to create a parenting plan. If filing for a divorce or legal separation, filers should be prepared to provide information about the following: child custody, parenting time, child support, spousal support and the separation of community property and debt.
Family law actions must be filed in the superior court of the county in which one of the spouses resides provided that at least one of the spouses has lived in Arizona for at least 90 days. If the action involves a minor child, that child must have lived in Arizona for at least 6 months prior to filing.
(3) A marriage ceremony which takes place with the appearance of the contracting parties before the solemnizing officer and their personal declaration that they take each other as husband and wife in the presence of not less than two witnesses of legal age. (53a, 55a)ChanRoblesVirtualawlibrary
(2) Any priest, rabbi, imam, or minister of any church or religious sect duly authorized by his church or religious sect and registered with the civil registrar general, acting within the limits of the written authority granted by his church or religious sect and provided that at least one of the contracting parties belongs to the solemnizing officer's church or religious sect;
(2) Those solemnized by any person not legally authorized to perform marriages unless such marriages were contracted with either or both parties believing in good faith that the solemnizing officer had the legal authority to do so;
(2) The absolute community of property or the conjugal partnership, as the case may be, shall be dissolved and liquidated, but if either spouse contracted said marriage in bad faith, his or her share of the net profits of the community property or conjugal partnership property shall be forfeited in favor of the common children or, if there are none, the children of the guilty spouse by a previous marriage or in default of children, the innocent spouse;
(1) That the party in whose behalf it is sought to have the marriage annulled was eighteen years of age or over but below twenty-one, and the marriage was solemnized without the consent of the parents, guardian or person having substitute parental authority over the party, in that order, unless after attaining the age of twenty-one, such party freely cohabited with the other and both lived together as husband and wife;
(3) That the consent of either party was obtained by fraud, unless such party afterwards, with full knowledge of the facts constituting the fraud, freely cohabited with the other as husband and wife;
(4) That the consent of either party was obtained by force, intimidation or undue influence, unless the same having disappeared or ceased, such party thereafter freely cohabited with the other as husband and wife;
(2) For causes mentioned in number 2 of Article 45, by the same spouse, who had no knowledge of the other's insanity; or by any relative or guardian or person having legal charge of the insane, at any time before the death of either party, or by the insane spouse during a lucid interval or after regaining sanity;
(2) The absolute community or the conjugal partnership shall be dissolved and liquidated but the offending spouse shall have no right to any share of the net profits earned by the absolute community or the conjugal partnership, which shall be forfeited in accordance with the provisions of Article 43(2);
(4) The offending spouse shall be disqualified from inheriting from the innocent spouse by intestate succession. Moreover, provisions in favor of the offending spouse made in the will of the innocent spouse shall be revoked by operation of law. (106a)ChanRoblesVirtualawlibrary
(2) The final decree of legal separation shall be set aside, but the separation of property and any forfeiture of the share of the guilty spouse already effected shall subsist, unless the spouses agree to revive their former property regime.
(2) Benefit has occurred to the family prior to the objection or thereafter. If the benefit accrued prior to the objection, the resulting obligation shall be enforced against the separate property of the spouse who has not obtained consent.
(3) With respect to the extrinsic validity of contracts entered into in the Philippines but affecting property situated in a foreign country whose laws require different formalities for its extrinsic validity. (124a)ChanRoblesVirtualawlibrary
(3) Property acquired before the marriage by either spouse who has legitimate descendants by a former marriage, and the fruits as well as the income, if any, of such property. (201a)ChanRoblesVirtualawlibrary
(2) All debts and obligations contracted during the marriage by the designated administrator-spouse for the benefit of the community, or by both spouses, or by one spouse with the consent of the other;
(8) The value of what is donated or promised by both spouses in favor of their common legitimate children for the exclusive purpose of commencing or completing a professional or vocational course or other activity for self-improvement;
(9) Ante-nuptial debts of either spouse other than those falling under paragraph (7) of this Article, the support of illegitimate children of either spouse, and liabilities incurred by either spouse by reason of a crime or a quasi-delict, in case of absence or insufficiency of the exclusive property of the debtor-spouse, the payment of which shall be considered as advances to be deducted from the share of the debtor-spouse upon liquidation of the community; and
(3) In the absence of sufficient community property, the separate property of both spouses shall be solidarily liable for the support of the family. The spouse present shall, upon proper petition in a summary proceeding, be given judicial authority to administer or encumber any specific separate property of the other spouse and use the fruits or proceeds thereof to satisfy the latter's share. (178a)ChanRoblesVirtualawlibrary
(2) The debts and obligations of the absolute community shall be paid out of its assets. In case of insufficiency of said assets, the spouses shall be solidarily liable for the unpaid balance with their separate properties in accordance with the provisions of the second paragraph of Article 94.
(4) The net remainder of the properties of the absolute community shall constitute its net assets, which shall be divided equally between husband and wife, unless a different proportion or division was agreed upon in the marriage settlements, or unless there has been a voluntary waiver of such share provided in this Code. For purpose of computing the net profits subject to forfeiture in accordance with Articles 43, No. (2) and 63, No. (2), the said profits shall be the increase in value between the market value of the community property at the time of the celebration of the marriage and the market value at the time of its dissolution.
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