Florida Family Law Self Help Forms - Free Divorce Forms

by Julia Westbrook, Paralegal

When someone wants to get divorced and cannot afford an attorney, one of their options is to do it themselves. The State of Florida provides Family Law self help forms that can be obtained at your local courthouse for a fee or they can be found and printed on the internet. These forms are Florida Supreme Court approved and will be accepted by the Court.

You can obtain these forms online by either going to a search engine such as google.com and typing in the words “Florida Family Law Self Help Forms”, a page will open with options of different websites that have the blank forms, or you can go directly to http://www.flcourts.org/gen_public/family/forms_rules/index.shtml. The forms are listed by topic and each one has a brief instruction sheet attached.

Documents on the above site are saved in RTF (rich text format) so that you can save the text into almost all versions of any word processor and on any computer operating system. They can be saved on your computer and viewed with any word processor, including WordPad, Notepad, Word and Star Office.

The online forms can also be accessed in the PDF format. This format can be typed on at the website, but if you attempt to save the file, information you have typed onto the form might not be saved onto your computer. The form might be blank when you open it again. So always print what you have done before you close the file or you could lose all of the information you have added to the form.

If a form has a space provided for a Notary signature and stamp, then you must sign the form in front of a Notary. You cannot sign the form and then take it to a Notary. The function of the Notary is to verify that the person who is signing the document matches the name on the form, so also bring along a valid picture ID. The Clerk of Court can provide this service for a fee, and will not accept a form without this stamp if the form requires it.

Please be aware that the packet from the Courthouse provides just the forms. It does not give specific instructions on how to do a divorce. When sending the completed forms in to the Court, always provide the Clerk of Court with the originals, and each time you send something to the court, you MUST always send a copy to the other party.

So take a deep breath, remember to pay attention to detail and always listen to your Judge (not your friends and relatives). Dress properly and refrain from speaking until spoken to by the Judge no matter what you hear from the other side. Showing respect for the Court can not only help you receive what you want from the Judge, it could also keep you from learning first hand the meaning of the term “Contempt of Court.”

 

 

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