Does Florida need a neutral ‘family law reform’ task force? - Tampa Full-Service Law Firm

TALLAHASSEE – According to retired Circuit Court Judge Robert M Evans, another dangerously flawed ‘Family Law Reform’ bill has been once again submitted in the Florida Legislature. Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon has introduced Senate Bill 250 which contains “as one of its greatest flaws an equal child timesharing provision” which creates a legal presumption for equal time split between parents. “This legal presumption can only be overcome if the parent challenging the presumption enters into a legal fight and proves with evidence that it is not in the best interests of the child to have equal time with both parents. There is no exception in the proposed statute regarding the age, physical or mental health of the child, or the physical or mental health of the parents.”

“This bill further allows current alimony recipients, who in good faith entered into legal contracts providing for their support; to lose the support they negotiated and agreed upon. If an alimony recipient’s income exceeds a mere 10 percent of that which existed or was assigned to them at the time that the alimony award was made, this fact alone constitutes a “significant change of circumstance” allowing the payor spouse to decrease the amount of support he or she is paying in alimony. Incredibly, this applies even if the recipients’ 10 percent total income increase over time was simply from basic cost of living adjustments made to their minimum wage pay to help them keep up with inflation.”

Judge Evans encourages Floridians to read the bill for themselves and urges us to call our governor’s office to demand legislation that is studied, just and recommended by a neutral, independent expert task force.

The Senate bill can be found here:

http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2016/0250/BillText/Filed/HTML

http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2016/0250/BillText/Filed/PDF

The attorneys of Allen Dell pride themselves on staying abreast of changes in laws affecting our clients. Marital & Family law is an ever changing landscape, affecting all couples in committed relationships whether the partners are of the same-sex or opposite sexes, with children and families, or not.