Where can I find Florida's adoption statutes?

Florida's adoption laws are in Florida Statutes Chapter 63, which you can look up by chapter number on the state's official statutes website. For a stepparent adoption, you will mostly be reading a handful of sections within that chapter.

The key sections for stepparent adoption:

• Adoption Requirements, Fla. Stat. § 63.102: the general requirements for bringing an adoption case. Stepparent adoptions are filed in the Circuit Court in your county.
• Consent Requirements, Fla. Stat. § 63.062: who must consent to an adoption, including the child's consent at age 12 and older.
• Consent Waiver, Fla. Stat. § 63.064: the situations in which consent may be waived.
• Putative Father Registry, Fla. Stat. § 63.054: the registry that must be searched in each adoption proceeding.
• Effect of Adoption, Fla. Stat. § 63.172: what adoption changes legally, including the child's inheritance rights. It also ends the other parent's parental rights and child support obligations.

Other sections worth knowing:

• Abandonment, Fla. Stat. § 63.089: Florida sets no fixed number of months. Abandonment depends on the parent's overall conduct, so it is judged case by case.
• Home study, Fla. Stat. § 63.092: a home study is waived for stepparents.
• Who may be adopted and who may adopt, Fla. Stat. § 63.042: this section covers adult adoption as well as adoption of a minor.

A few practical tips for reading the statutes:

• Chapter 63 covers every kind of adoption in Florida, including agency and adoption-entity cases. Many sections will not apply to a stepparent adoption, so focus on the ones above.
• Statutes tell you the rules, but the Circuit Court handles the details of filing. For specifics such as local filing procedures, the filing fee (typically in the $200-$500 range), or residency questions, the Circuit Court clerk in your county can confirm what applies.
• If your situation is contested, or you don't know where the other parent is, the answer depends on your facts. Ask the clerk or an attorney about that specific issue rather than relying on a general reading of the statutes.

Reading the statutes yourself is optional. You can complete a stepparent adoption in Florida without an attorney, and the total cost is typically under $1,000, compared with roughly $3,000-$5,000+ for an attorney. Timelines vary, but a stepparent adoption typically takes about 3 months.

How we help: StepParent Adoption 360 is a document preparation service, not a law firm. You answer questions online, and we prepare the complete court document package for your county. You then file it yourself, without an attorney. The price is $349 for the first child (or for one adult adoptee) and $99 for each additional child. Your court-ready documents arrive within 24-48 hours after you finish the questions, and they come with our 100% court acceptance guarantee. We have helped 1228 Florida families, and more than 34,000 families nationally since 2001.