The facts of my story, as short as possible.

About 9 years ago I had an extramarital affair with another man and became pregnant with his child. At the time, I told him that the baby was my husband’s and not his. However, he made several request to have a DNA test performed as soon as the baby was born, but I always refused to have it done. In the end, (after becoming very frustrated with me) he gave up and we parted ways. Knowing this man was the biological father, I decided that I needed to come clean with my husband about everything. For a short time, we reconciled and he decided to raise her as his own daughter.

Unfortunately, my husband (now my ex) and I divorced one another 5 years ago; however, my ex-husband is still the legal father of my daughter.

- In short, I always feared this day would come and I’m looking for a little information on what to expect in court?

- Can this really be challenged after 9 years?

- More importantly, will the biological father be granted his requests outlined in the petition, (DNA test, visitation, and so on)?

Thanks for any advice offered on this.

In Florida, paternity may be established at ANY time up to the age of majority = 18. If the bio father is shown to BE the father, the court MAY establish him as the legal father, and he may seek visitation as well as expect to be ordered to pay child support. Whether or not the court actually WILL order such a change is based on a LOT of circumstances, which taken together fall under the term "best interest of the child". Such a change is LESS likely to be ordered when the parents as accepted until now are still married...and have better chance of being ordered if the parents are divorced. Only a Florida family law attorney, who practices in the particular court in question can give you a reasonable chance of probability of the court's action once that attorney has gone through some extensive Q&A about the situation. The court could absolutely give the actual father rights, including visitation...or...the court may find that it's not in the child's best interest to suddenly bring a new parental figure on board at this late stage of the game and could keep your ex husband, the only father the child has known and who didn't contest paternity in the divorce, as the child's legal father, even if DNA proves that he's not. If dad IS given rights (and responsibilities), such a change would generally start with supervised visitation to allow parent and child a chance to get to know each other before the court would consider flat out visitation.

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While pointers can be helpful, ultimately the number one lesson in any legal action is: don't take legal advice from books, family, friends, co-workers, police officers, grocery clerks, web sites, or people on legal message boards. The only person who can give YOU legal advice is YOUR attorney.

http://www.aardvarc.org

I agree with aardvarc on this one. Have you browsed through the information in LawInfo's Free Legal Resource Center to learn more about your issue yet? See: http://www.lawinfo.com/consumer.html and http://resources.lawinfo.com/en/index.html. You can certainly try to speak to a lawyer to determine what legal options may be available. In the meantime, you may be able to learn more on your own. Search the "Free Legal Resources" tab, or browse the Consumer Resources. Good luck.

Thanks for your quick reply, aardvarc (and I appriciate the link the moderator provided). You answered exactly what I needed to know--information and answers that I could not get over the weekend (given I just received the paperwork late Friday).

Under Florida Law you are entitled to 50 percent time share with your child this is constitutionally protected. You WILL have to pay for paternity if you contest it. If you stipulate to paternity you can have 50 percent time with your child and no judge can ORDER child support.

Some Judges are ignoring this and sadly some attorneys. I had one Judge attempt to deny 50 percent time share because the parents didn't live in the same County but he CANNOT legally do that because of the way the NEW LAWS are written.

There is a Family Law Rewrite Act of 2003 which took effect October 2008 and it REQUIRES to judges to grant 50/50 time split to parents and prohibits them from ordering child support if BOTH parents are willing to share time equally with the child.

Here is a link to my article on this subject:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/68353803/A...-ABOVE-the-Law

Here is a link to the family law rewrite itself

http://childrens-justice.org/papers/...write-2003.htm