What happens when a parent takes children out of Florida with the intent not to return them to Florida? I'm not talking about vacations or plans to see grandma over Christmas vacation, I'm talking about a parent who is sharing custody with the other parent and puts the kids in the back of the car in the middle of the night or takes them to the airport and they fly out of town and they have, essentially mother has abducted the children from the other parent.

In those kinds of situations one of the things that the court is going to look for is whether or not there is an active case that's been filed in the court. In a case where parents have never been married but they share parental responsibilities of children and they've never had any court orders entered a case can be filed called an allocation of parental responsibilities that protects the parents from having one or the other abduct or take the children out of state without a lawful court order. This is very important to parents who fear that the other party may pick up in the middle of the night and take the children to see family like their parents who live in another state without the permission of the other parent.

Florida's law requires that before a child or children can be removed from the state that they do so by either obtaining a court order or a signed written consent authorization from the other parent to relocate the children from the state.