Adoption is the rare area of family law where the hearing ends in a photograph. Getting to that hearing is the legal work: the right kind of petition, consent taken in the right window from the right people, a father’s rights properly addressed, and a file clean enough that nobody can unsettle it years later. Mack Law handles adoptions across Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties — the straightforward ones efficiently, and the contested ones properly.
The kinds of adoption we handle
Florida adoptions run under Chapter 63, Florida Statutes, but the route through it differs enormously depending on who is adopting and what has to happen to the existing legal parents first. These are the paths we work in.
Stepparent adoption
The most common adoption we handle, and often the most emotionally straightforward: a spouse adopts their husband’s or wife’s child, and becomes that child’s legal parent for every purpose — inheritance, benefits, decision-making, and the relationship itself if the marriage later ends.
Two things make it simpler than most adoptions. A stepparent adoption is exempt from the preliminary home study that other placements require. And where the other legal parent consents, it can move quickly.
The complication is almost always that other parent. A stepparent adoption terminates their rights permanently, so it cannot happen over their objection unless the court first terminates those rights on statutory grounds — most often abandonment. If the other parent is absent, that is not automatically abandonment; it has to be proven.
Relative and kinship adoption
Grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings and other close relatives who are already raising a child can formalise it. Like stepparent adoptions, relative adoptions are exempt from the preliminary home study requirement, which removes cost and delay.
These cases often arrive after years of informal care, which cuts both ways: the child’s stability is easy to demonstrate, but the legal parents’ positions may be unresolved and one of them may reappear. Where a relative has been the child’s functional parent, we generally want the arrangement in an order rather than resting on everyone’s continued goodwill.
Second-parent and LGBTQ adoption
Florida treats same-sex adoptive parents the same as any others. Joint adoptions, stepparent adoptions and second-parent adoptions are all available.
For married couples where one spouse gives birth, the marital presumption generally puts the non-birth spouse on the birth certificate — but a birth certificate is an administrative document, not an adjudication of parentage. A confirmatory adoption converts that presumption into a court order, which is what travels reliably across state lines and holds up if the relationship, or the family’s address, changes. For couples who used a donor or a surrogate, that order is worth having.
Adult adoption
Florida permits the adoption of an adult, and it is used more than people expect: a stepparent formalising a relationship with a stepchild who grew up in the home, a long-term foster parent, a caregiver of an adult with disabilities, or a family confirming in law what has been true in fact for decades.
The mechanics are simpler than a minor adoption — no home study, no termination of a parent’s rights, no best-interests inquiry. What is required is the adult adoptee’s own written consent, and generally the consent of the adopting party’s spouse. The consequences are real: inheritance rights, and a new legal parent-child relationship.
Agency and private placement adoption
An adoption entity — a licensed agency or an attorney — places a child with adoptive parents, either through an agency programme or a direct placement arranged between a birth mother and an adoptive family. Both are governed by Chapter 63, and both require a favourable preliminary home study, including criminal and child-abuse clearances, before a child may be placed.
Florida also regulates what adoptive parents may pay. Reasonable living and medical expenses for a birth mother are permitted within limits and must be disclosed to the court; payment beyond what the statute allows is not a technicality but a serious problem. Disclosure obligations run in both directions, and the paperwork here is the point.
Foster care and DCF adoption
Children in the dependency system reach adoption by a different road: parental rights are terminated in a Chapter 39 dependency case, and the adoption then proceeds under Chapter 63. Adoption from foster care carries real financial support — adoption subsidies, Medicaid, and Florida’s tuition waiver for adopted children at state institutions.
The friction in these cases is usually timing and competing petitions: a relative who surfaces late, a foster family with a bonded placement, and a court weighing both. Being organised early matters more here than anywhere else.
Interstate and international adoption
An adoption that crosses state lines is governed by the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children. The child may not leave the sending state until both states approve, and families who move first and ask later create problems that are expensive to undo.
For children adopted abroad, we handle Florida readoption — obtaining a Florida judgment and birth certificate for a child adopted overseas. Even where federal law already recognises the adoption, a domestic order is far easier to produce for a school, a passport office, or a probate court in thirty years’ time.
Consent: who gives it, when, and when it can be taken back
Consent is where adoptions are won and lost, and Florida’s timing rules are precise and counterintuitive.
- A birth mother may not sign a valid consent until 48 hours after the birth, or until the day she is notified in writing that she is fit for discharge from the hospital or birth centre.
- Consent signed before the child is 6 months old is binding and irrevocable the moment it is signed, unless it is proven to have been obtained by fraud or duress.
- Consent signed after the child is 6 months old may be revoked within 3 business days.
Read those last two again, because almost everyone has them backwards. The younger the child, the less room there is to change your mind. Adoptive families sometimes assume there is always a cooling-off period; birth parents sometimes assume they have longer than they do. Both assumptions cause avoidable heartbreak.
Whose consent is needed is its own question, governed by section 63.062. And section 63.064 allows a court to waive a parent’s consent in defined circumstances — where a parent has deserted the child without means of identification, has abandoned the child, has had their rights terminated by a court, or has been judicially declared incompetent with restoration medically improbable.
The Florida Putative Father Registry
An unmarried biological father who has not established paternity can lose the right to object to an adoption simply by failing to file. The Florida Putative Father Registry, maintained by the Office of Vital Statistics, exists for exactly this: a claim-of-paternity form is available from the Department of Health, the Department of Children and Families, and the clerks of the circuit courts.
For adoptive families, checking the registry is a required step and a protective one — an adoption finalised without addressing a registered father is an adoption that can be attacked. For fathers, registering is the cheapest legal insurance available, and the deadline does not wait for anyone to explain it to you. If you are an unmarried father who may face an adoption, this is the first thing to do, not the last.
Contested adoptions and terminating parental rights
Where a legal parent will not consent, the adoption cannot proceed until the court terminates that parent’s rights in a proceeding under section 63.089 — and the court may only do so after a hearing, on clear grounds, with strict notice to everyone entitled to it.
Abandonment is the ground we litigate most. It is not a headcount of missed birthdays: courts look at whether the parent, while able to do so, has failed to provide meaningful support and failed to maintain meaningful contact. A parent who sent a card and nothing else may still be found to have abandoned; a parent who was actively prevented from contact may not. These cases turn on records — support payment histories, messages, school and medical files, and a truthful account of what was actually tried.
The other half of this work is defending it. If you are a parent facing termination of your rights so that someone else can adopt your child, that is the most consequential family law proceeding there is, and it is not one to attend unrepresented.
Home studies, costs and timing
Except for stepparent and relative adoptions, a child may not be placed in a prospective adoptive home without a favourable preliminary home study including criminal and child-abuse clearances. Home studies are not designed to fail people. Undisclosed history is what causes problems — an old arrest, a prior dependency contact, a household member nobody mentioned. Disclose it to your lawyer first and it is usually manageable.
Timing depends almost entirely on consent. An uncontested stepparent or relative adoption can often be completed in a few months. A contested termination adds a litigated proceeding with its own discovery and hearing, and can take considerably longer. We give a realistic range at the consultation rather than an optimistic one.
When guardianship fits better
Where a parent is temporarily unable to care for a child — illness, incapacity, deployment, time out of the country — a guardianship can authorise an adult to provide care and make decisions for a defined period without permanently ending parental rights. Adoption is forever; guardianship is not. We will tell you honestly which tool fits your situation, including when the answer is that you do not need us yet.
Florida adoption FAQs
Not directly. A stepparent adoption permanently ends the other legal parent’s rights, so where they object the court must first terminate those rights on statutory grounds — most commonly abandonment, meaning a failure to provide meaningful support and maintain meaningful contact while able to do so. Absence alone is not automatically abandonment; it has to be proven with records. Where the other parent consents, a stepparent adoption is one of the faster proceedings in family law.
This surprises nearly everyone. If the consent is signed before the child turns 6 months old, it is binding and irrevocable the moment it is signed, unless it can be proven that it was obtained by fraud or duress. If the child is older than 6 months when the consent is signed, it may be revoked within 3 business days. Separately, a birth mother cannot sign a valid consent until 48 hours after the birth, or until she is notified in writing that she is fit for discharge.
Usually yes, but not for a stepparent or relative adoption — those are exempt from the preliminary home study requirement. For every other placement, a child may not be placed in the home until a favourable preliminary home study, including criminal and child-abuse clearances, is complete. Undisclosed history is what causes trouble, not history itself; tell your lawyer everything early.
File a claim of paternity with the Florida Putative Father Registry, and do it now rather than after you hear an adoption is planned. Forms are available through the Department of Health’s Office of Vital Statistics, the Department of Children and Families, and the circuit court clerks. An unmarried father who has not established paternity and has not registered can lose the ability to object at all. Registering is not the same as establishing paternity, and you should do both.
Yes, and it is more common than people assume — stepparents formalising a lifelong relationship, former foster parents, and caregivers of adults with disabilities. There is no home study, no termination of anyone’s rights and no best-interests inquiry. What is required is the adult adoptee’s written consent, and generally the consent of the adopting party’s spouse. The effects are real, including inheritance rights.
Often it is still worth it. The marital presumption and the birth certificate are administrative; a confirmatory or second-parent adoption is a court judgment, and a judgment is what other states, schools, hospitals and probate courts reliably recognise. Florida treats same-sex adoptive parents the same as any others, and joint, stepparent and second-parent adoptions are all available.
It depends almost entirely on whether consent is in hand. An uncontested stepparent or relative adoption is comparatively quick and predictable and skips the home study. A contested matter requires a termination proceeding under section 63.089 with its own notice, discovery and hearing, and takes considerably longer. In placement adoptions there are also regulated birth-mother expenses that must be disclosed to the court. We give you a realistic range at the consultation.
Yes, under the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children. The critical rule is that the child may not leave the sending state until both states have approved the placement. Families who move the child first and seek approval afterwards create problems that are expensive and slow to unwind. For a child adopted overseas, we handle Florida readoption so you hold a Florida judgment and birth certificate.
Related work at Mack Law: time-sharing and custody, donor agreements and assisted reproduction, paternity and parental-rights Q&A, and family law generally.
Talk it through — confidentially.
Call (407) 749-1034 or request a confidential consultation*. Prompt responses, usually the same business day.
*Consultations are billed at a flat fee. We research your matter thoroughly before the call and stay on the phone as long as you need — and if you don’t feel the consultation delivered value, we’ll refund the fee.
This page is general information about Florida law as of its last review and is not legal advice. Adoption outcomes depend on facts a page cannot know, and consent and termination deadlines are unforgiving. Citations are to Chapter 63, Florida Statutes, including sections 63.062, 63.064, 63.082, 63.085, 63.089 and 63.092, and to Chapter 39 for dependency matters.