If the Court Appoints a Guardian, Can Dad Still Vote, Drive, and Marry?

Meet Art: A Father, a Voter, a Man Who Wants to Remarry

Art is 77, lives in Holly Hill, and has voted in every election since he was old enough to register. He is also in a ten-year relationship with a companion he wants to marry. When his adult children became worried about his memory and his finances after a string of confusing bank transactions, they asked a hard question: if a Florida court appoints a guardian for Art, does he lose the right to vote, drive, and marry? Art is a composite, not an actual Truestead client, but his situation reflects what many Florida families face.

Guardianship in Florida is a court process under Chapter 744, Florida Statutes, where a judge who finds a person incapacitated appoints someone to make decisions for them, but only after considering whether less restrictive tools would work instead. The good news for families like Art's is that Florida law does not treat guardianship as an all-or-nothing loss of personhood. It is built around a statute that spells out, right by right, what a court can take away, what it can hand to a guardian, and what no court can ever touch.

Rights a Court May Remove From Art

Florida Statute 744.3215 gives judges a specific list of rights that can be removed from a person after an incapacity hearing. These are rights the court can take away because the examining committee and the evidence show the person can no longer safely exercise them. Depending on what the evidence shows about Art, a court might remove:

• The right to contract
• The right to sue or defend lawsuits
• The right to apply for government benefits on his own
• The right to manage or dispose of his property, or make gifts
• The right to decide where he lives

Once removed, these rights are not simply gone. They are transferred to the guardian, who exercises them on Art's behalf, subject to the court's ongoing supervision, an initial plan and inventory, and annual reporting requirements.

Rights That Can Never Be Delegated, Even If Restricted

Here is the part many families do not expect: some rights on Florida's list can be removed from Art, but they can never simply be handed over to someone else to exercise for him. The statute treats these as too personal to delegate. They include:

• The right to marry
• The right to vote
• The right to personally apply for government benefits
• The right to hold a driver's license
• The right to travel
• The right to seek or retain employment

For Art, that means his voting rights stay intact unless a judge specifically and separately orders them removed. Guardianship alone does not silence a Florida voter. The same logic protects his ability to hold a driver's license and to work, unless the court makes a specific finding and includes that specific restriction in the order.

What About Art's Right to Marry?

This is where Florida law gets more nuanced, and it is exactly what Art's family asked about. The right to marry can be restricted by the court, but Florida treats it differently from most other rights. If a court removes only Art's right to enter into a contract, his right to marry does not disappear outright; instead, it becomes subject to court approval before he can validly marry.

Florida's courts have also made clear that failing to get that court approval beforehand does not automatically void a marriage. The Florida Supreme Court addressed this in a 2017 decision, holding that a ward who marries without first getting court approval can still seek to have that marriage validated afterward, rather than having it treated as void from the start. In practice, this gives families and wards some breathing room, but it also means anyone in Art's position is better served by raising the marriage question with the court directly, before the wedding, rather than after.

Rights Art Keeps No Matter What

Beyond the rights that cannot be delegated, Florida law guarantees a baseline of dignity that no guardianship order can strip away. Regardless of how limited or how broad Art's guardianship becomes, he retains the right to:

• Be treated humanely, with dignity and respect
• Be protected from abuse, neglect, and exploitation
• Receive visitors and communicate with people he chooses
• Have privacy
• Have his guardianship reviewed annually, including the guardian's plan and report
• Be restored to full capacity at the earliest possible time, if his condition improves

These protections exist precisely because Florida law recognizes that guardianship is a significant restriction on liberty, and it should never be broader than the evidence requires.

How Art's Order Was Tailored

In Art's situation, the family's attorney petitioned the court for a limited guardianship rather than a plenary one. A three-member examining committee evaluated Art and reported to the court that he struggled with complex financial decisions and was vulnerable to exploitation, but that he understood the concept of voting, could safely operate a vehicle based on his most recent evaluation, and clearly understood what marriage meant and who he wished to marry.

Because Chapter 744 requires the court to consider less restrictive alternatives and to tailor any guardianship order to the specific findings in the case, the judge removed only Art's rights to contract and to manage his property, appointing a family member as guardian of the property. Art's right to vote, his driver's license, and his right to marry (subject to the court's approval process, since his contracting rights were removed) were preserved in the written order. Art kept the vote he has cast for over fifty years, kept his license after review, and was able to move forward with his companion's blessing and the court's approval on record.

Sources

• Florida Senate, Florida Statutes Chapter 744, Section 3215 (rights that may be removed from a person)
• The Florida Bar, Consumer Pamphlet: What is Guardianship?, January 2026
• Pankauski Hauser Lazarus, Guardianships and the Right of a Ward to Marry, July 2020
• Kuhn Legal, Florida Supreme Court Clarifies Restrictions on Marriage Rights (discussing Smith v. Smith), November 2017

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice, nor does reading it create an attorney-client relationship. Florida estate, elder, probate, and real estate law are fact-specific and change over time. Consult a licensed Florida attorney about your individual circumstances. Arthur Simpson, Esq. is licensed to practice law in the State of Florida. Attorney advertising.