If contact with your grandchild has stopped, the question you are asking is whether a Florida judge can order visitation. A judge can, but only in a narrow set of circumstances, and most families who ask this question do not fall inside them.
Florida does not give grandparents a general right to see their grandchildren. There is no petition you can file simply because a relationship has broken down, because the parents are divorcing, or because you disagree with how the child is being raised. One statute survives, section 752.011 of the Florida Statutes, and it opens only when a parent is deceased, missing, or in a persistent vegetative state. Here is where that door is, why it is this narrow, and what other paths sometimes exist.
Who can file a petition under section 752.011
A grandparent may petition a Florida circuit court for visitation in two situations:
- Both of the child's parents are deceased, missing, or in a persistent vegetative state.
- One parent is deceased, missing, or in a persistent vegetative state, and the other parent has been convicted of a felony or an offense of violence evincing behavior that poses a substantial threat of harm to the child's health or welfare.
The definitions are specific. Section 752.001 includes great-grandparents in the word "grandparent," and "missing" means whereabouts unknown for at least 90 days after a diligent search. These are not descriptive words a court will stretch. If your situation does not match one of the two circumstances above, the statute does not apply, however close the relationship was.
Why the door is this narrow
The narrowness is not an oversight but the result of almost thirty years of constitutional litigation. Article I, section 23 of the Florida Constitution contains an express right of privacy, and Florida courts have applied it to a parent's decisions about who spends time with their child. In Beagle v. Beagle (Fla. 1996), the Florida Supreme Court struck down part of the older statute because it let a court order visitation over a parent's objection in an intact family with no showing of harm to the child. In Von Eiff v. Azicri (Fla. 1998), the court struck the provision allowing visitation when a parent was deceased, again for want of a harm requirement. The United States Supreme Court reached a similar conclusion on federal grounds in Troxel v. Granville (2000).
The Legislature rewrote the law in 2015, and section 752.011 is the result. It was built to fit the space those decisions left, which is why it turns on parental unfitness or significant harm rather than on what would simply be good for the child. That history is why an attorney may tell you that a long and loving relationship with your grandchild is not, by itself, a legal claim.
What the case looks like if you can file
- A preliminary hearing. The court first decides whether the grandparent has made a prima facie showing of parental unfitness or of significant harm to the child. If that showing is not made, the court dismisses the petition and may order the grandparent to pay the parent's reasonable attorney fees and costs.
- A guardian ad litem and mediation. If the showing is made, the court may appoint a guardian ad litem and refers the case to family mediation under section 752.015. Understand mediation before you arrive: the mediator is a neutral who represents no one and decides nothing, while your attorney represents you.
- A final hearing. If mediation does not resolve it, the court may award reasonable visitation only on findings, by clear and convincing evidence, that a parent is unfit or significant harm exists, that visitation is in the child's best interest, and that it will not materially harm the parent and child relationship.
Clear and convincing evidence is a demanding standard. The statute lists what the court weighs, including the bond between grandparent and child, the parent's reasons for ending contact, demonstrable mental or emotional harm, the guardian ad litem's recommendation, the child's preference if the child is mature enough, and the toll the litigation itself takes on the child.
The 2022 amendment, and where a presumption applies
In 2022 the Legislature added one provision that runs the other way. Where a parent has been held criminally liable for the death of the child's other parent, or civilly liable for an intentional tort causing that death, a presumption favors reasonable visitation for the parents of the deceased parent, and for a stepgrandparent who is that parent's parent. It is overcome only by a finding that visitation is not in the child's best interest. This is the one place in Florida law where the burden tilts toward the grandparent.
What section 752.011 does not reach
A divorce between the parents does not create grandparent visitation rights. In a Florida divorce the court sets a parenting plan and time-sharing schedule between the two parents under section 61.13, and grandparents are neither parties to it nor recipients of time-sharing under it. If that is your real concern, our pages on child custody and time-sharing and on divorce explain how the process works.
Estrangement alone does not qualify. Neither does a parent's remarriage, a move, or a disagreement about school, religion, or discipline. A living, competent parent in Florida decides who spends time with their child, and that decision carries constitutional protection.
The other routes, described honestly
An open dependency case. Where a child has been adjudicated dependent and removed from a parent's physical custody in a Department of Children and Families case, section 39.509 entitles a grandparent or stepgrandparent to reasonable visitation unless the court finds it is not in the child's best interest or would interfere with the case plan. Grandparents may also ask to intervene, and relatives sit high in the statutory placement priorities. This is a genuine avenue and not a shortcut: it exists only where the state has already brought a case.
Already raising the child. Chapter 751 lets an extended family member, grandparents included, seek temporary or concurrent custody with the parents' notarized consent, or where the grandparent is caring for the child full time as a substitute parent, so the caregiver can consent to medical care and similar decisions. It is a mechanism for a child who already lives with you, not a way to obtain visits.
An order from another state. In Ledoux-Nottingham v. Downs (Fla. 2017), the Florida Supreme Court held that the federal Full Faith and Credit Clause required Florida to enforce a Colorado grandparent visitation order, and that Florida's privacy provision created no exception. Have an out-of-state order reviewed rather than assume it died at the state line.
Two limits apply once a case exists. An original petition may be filed only once every two years absent good cause, and an existing order changes only on a substantial change in circumstances, the same logic that governs other post-judgment modification requests.
What to do next
Start with the facts, because the facts decide whether a case exists at all. Write down the status of each parent, any criminal or civil findings involving them, whether a child welfare case has ever been opened, whether the child has ever lived with you, and whether any court in any state has entered an order about this child. Bring that to a consultation. Tampa family cases are heard in the Hillsborough County Circuit Court, Family Law Division, at the George Edgecomb Courthouse, 800 E. Twiggs Street.
Sometimes Florida gives you a petition to file. More often it does not, and the useful work is finding what else is available and whether it fits. Rechel & Associates, P.A. has been serving Tampa Bay families since 1992, and either answer is one you are entitled to hear clearly.