Visitation Rights in Hillsborough County, Florida

How Florida Defines Time-Sharing & Parental Responsibility

Florida law no longer uses the word “visitation” in its statutes. Instead, the state refers to a parent’s scheduled time with a child as time-sharing and to decision-making authority as parental responsibility. You’ll still hear “visitation rights” used informally, and both terms describe the same essential concern: how much time each parent spends with a child and who makes decisions about the child’s upbringing.

Under Florida Statute 61.13, it is the public policy of this state that children maintain frequent and continuing contact with both parents after a separation or divorce. Florida law does not presume that equal time-sharing is in a child’s best interests, and courts decide these issues based on the child’s best interests under the facts of each case. Every time-sharing decision comes back to the child’s best interests, weighing factors such as the child’s relationship with each parent, each parent’s ability to meet the child’s needs, and the stability of each household.

The law also requires that every time-sharing arrangement be memorialized in a formal parenting plan. That document must cover the daily schedule, how holidays and school breaks are divided, which parent handles which decisions, and how the parents will communicate about the child. It typically addresses how disputes will be resolved as well. A well-drafted parenting plan can help prevent many of the conflicts that surface later in enforcement proceedings.

Time-Sharing Cases in the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit

Hillsborough County family law matters, including visitation rights disputes, are heard in the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit at the George E. Edgecomb Courthouse. Each circuit has its own administrative orders, local forms, and procedural expectations, and the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit is no exception.

We’ve been serving families in Hillsborough County since 1988. That history means we know the local forms, filing timelines, and courtroom practices that newer or out-of-area counsel may have to learn on a client’s time and at a client’s expense. When procedure is handled correctly the first time, cases can move more efficiently and clients can avoid delays that were never necessary.

Enforcing or Modifying a Time-Sharing Order

A court-ordered parenting plan isn’t optional. When one parent withholds time-sharing without legal justification, the other can file a motion for enforcement or contempt. Depending on the severity and pattern of violations, a court may order make-up time-sharing, require the violating parent to pay the other’s attorney’s fees and costs, mandate a parenting course, impose community service, or, in serious cases, enter a contempt finding that carries fines or jail time.

One point that surprises many parents: unpaid child support does not give a parent the right to withhold court-ordered time-sharing. Those are separate legal obligations, and a parent cannot be denied visitation rights solely because support payments are behind.

Modifying an existing time-sharing order requires meeting a different and higher standard. A court will only change an established parenting plan if the requesting parent can show a substantial, material change in circumstances that wasn’t anticipated at the time of the original order and that the change serves the child’s best interests. Courts set that bar deliberately high to protect children from repeated disruption.

Grandparent Visitation Rights in Florida

Florida places significant limits on when grandparents or step-grandparents can seek court-ordered visitation. Under Florida Statute 752.011, a petition is only available in narrow circumstances, such as when both parents are deceased, missing, or in a persistent vegetative state, or when one parent meets that condition and the other has been convicted of a felony or violent offense.

Even in qualifying situations, a grandparent must prove by clear and convincing evidence that a parent is unfit or that the child would suffer significant harm without the visitation, and that granting visitation wouldn’t materially harm the parent-child relationship. Grandparents may generally file such a petition only once during any two-year period, unless they can show the child is suffering or at risk of mental or emotional harm. These are demanding standards, and whether they apply to a particular family situation is exactly the kind of question we can help you work through.