In the state of Florida, does a 15 year old have the right to chose which parent she wants to live with?

Apparently, yes! Our 15 yo granddaughter requested to live with her biological father. Now the mother is paying child support to the father as decided by the court.

Apparently, yes! Our 15 yo granddaughter requested to live with her biological father. Now the mother is paying child support to the father as decided by the court.

Excuse me, but that's not a legal answer. That's an anecdote. How do you know the parties didn't just stipulate to the change in custody, or that a judge simply didn't order it after a contested hearing taking the child's wishes into account as a factor, one of many perhaps?

I may be wrong about Florida (I practice in California) but this is one of those recurring questions on this board and everyone seems to agree that no state has a bright-line rule that the child gets to choose where to live at x age.

No, there is no state in the US where the child can merely decide, but they can testify in court to what they want and the judge will allow this and respect it with the review of other evidence,

For example is the other home safe, the criminal background of the parties, and more.

So a child can not just decide where to live. The other parent will have to make a motion in court to modify the existing court order, there has to be a court hearing ( or several) and a judge will have to rule on it.

My apologies to cadillac59 & Fr_Chuck & most especially to Fox197 for responding to this question. My personal situation just upsets me. In this case, the child did not simply make a decision. Both parents went to court & allowed the court to decide.

Both parents went to court & allowed the court to decide.

I just want to clarify this. They didn't "allow" the court to decide. ONLY the court can decide such a move. That's the point that Chuck and califdad were saying. No US state allows a minor to make such a decision. Its always up to a judge to rule in the best interests of the child.

Some states have guidelines on whether the minor child can voice their opinion and what weight to give it. I don't believe that FL has any specific guidelines.

To Fox,
The bottomline is, if the NCP wants to change the current custodial arrangement, the NCP needs to file a petition in Family court for a change in custody. The court will listen to all the arguments and make their decision

Thanks for the information. I figured it would require going back to court once again! I just was hoping someone knew how much weight they would put on what the child actually wants. When her father relocated to Deleware 2 years ago, she wanted to go to a "new place and build a relaionship with her daddy" and I honored her wishes in hopes that it would turn out that way. What I feared was that she would be miserable because they didn't have the best relationship (he travels a lot and isn't usually there for her and she has never really got along well with her step-mother). I was correct that nothing did or would change because she wants to move back, but he doesn't care what she wants and will not honor her wishes as I previously did. We got together with our lawyers and put the relocation in the Shared Parenting Agreement. I don't think it will be that easy now that the roles are reversed. I was hoping to avoid spending a fortune on lawyers trying to get her back. Thanks again for all your responses! :)

A 15 yr old will definitely be listened to. What weight a judge will put on it we can't predict. However, in your circumstances I would be surprised if they didn't grant the move back. It would be different if she had been living with the father long term. But I think the judge will view this as a 2 yr experiment that failed.

Thanks Scott!