Fla. Stat. § 39.505

This is the official text of Fla. Stat. § 39.505, part of Florida’s Stat — part of the compiled statutory law of Florida, published by the state as "Stat." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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39.505 No answer required.

Official statutory text

No answer to the petition or any other pleading need be filed by any child, parent, or legal custodian, but any matters which might be set forth in an answer or other pleading may be pleaded orally before the court or filed in writing as any such person may choose. Notwithstanding the filing of an answer or any pleading, the respondent shall, prior to an adjudicatory hearing, be advised by the court of the right to counsel and shall be given an opportunity to deny the allegations in the petition for dependency or to enter a plea to allegations in the petition before the court.

History: s. 20, ch. 78-414; s. 229, ch. 95-147; s. 66, ch. 98-403.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.