Like all lawsuits, starting your divorce begins with telling the court. And, in California, this is done by filing what’s known as a complaint.
A divorce complaint (also known as a “petition for divorce”) is a legal document that initiates divorce proceedings; it notifies the court of your intentions to dissolve your marriage, asks for their help in doing so, and provides them with the necessary information to help get it done.
Here’s what you need to know about how to file a divorce complaint in California, and what the Maples Family Law team can do to help you start your divorce process.
Before Filing Your Divorce Complaint
A divorce complaint might mark the official kick-off of your proceedings, however, the process actually begins before you start filling in the blanks.
Before you file your divorce complaint, you’ll want to pause and consider these three things:
Residency Requirements. At least one of you must have been a resident of the state for at least six months, prior to filing for divorce, and a resident of that particular county, for at least three.
Type of Divorce. The type of divorce you choose will play a large role in the overall tone of your process. Pay particular attention to whether you qualify for an uncontested divorce. If not, alternative methods such as mediation and collaborative divorce are still much less expensive and time-consuming than traditional litigation.
Select Representation. While you aren’t required to have an attorney, the state of California highly recommends it. An attorney can help you avoid expensive—sometimes irreversible—mistakes, and will ensure your interests are fully represented at all times.
At some point during your divorce, you will inevitably be forced to contemplate each of these three questions. These pre-game warmups will help you determine where you want the direction of your divorce to go, and help you avoid pitfalls, once you’re there.
How to File Your Divorce Complaint
Once you’ve checked all the boxes for your pre-game warm up, it’s time to file your petition for divorce. While there are a lot of small nuances that will go into this, it can essentially be summed up in three basic steps.
Step 1: Acquire and Complete Petition
Your petition for divorce marks the official beginning of your divorce. However, in order to help you, the court will need some important personal and procedural information about your situation (which should be included in your petition). =
Before you sit down to fill out your divorce complaint, make sure to have the following information on hand:
Your personal information.
Your spouse’s personal information.
Your type of separation (i.e. legal separation, divorce, annulment, etc.).
This is the same form you’d use to initiate a legal separation, an annulment, and to terminate a domestic partnership. So it’s important to make sure you’re checking the right boxes when filling out this information.
Step 2: Complete Additional Paperwork
While your petition is certainly important, it is only one aspect of filing for divorce, and, in California, there will likely be other documents you’ll need to include in your packet, before filing.
These documents will vary, depending on the unique circumstances of your case (such as, whether or not you have children). However, some of these additional divorce documents will likely include:
Summons
Proof of Service of Summons
Declaration Under Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and enforcement Act (UCCJEA)
Child Custody and Visitation (Parenting Time) Application
Property Declaration
Declaration of Disclosure
Income and Expense Declaration
Schedule of Assets and Debt
When in doubt, best to talk to a family law attorney. Divorce errors can be costly, and can sometimes require you to refile. Hence, it’s best to make sure you have everything you need the first time around.
Step 3: File Your Paperwork
Once you’ve gathered and completed all the necessary forms—and have made at least two copies of everything for your personal records—it’ll be time to file these things with the court.
Divorces are handled at the county level, so you will need to submit these documents to the county courthouse over your jurisdiction.
At this time, you’ll also be expected to pay a filing fee. In California, the filing fee for divorce is $435. If you can’t afford this amount, then make sure to include a fee waiver in your stack of documents to file.
After Filing Your Divorce Complaint
After you have successfully submitted your completed divorce documents to the court, there is still one thing left to do, before you can relax: execute proper service on your spouse.
Service of process is a fancy legal phrase for, “tell your spouse you filed for divorce.” Except, in order for it to count, it must be done properly. This usually requires someone other than you to hand deliver copies of all paperwork to your spouse, and to return proof of service to the court.
A spouse who has been served with divorce paperwork has thirty days to respond. If they don’t, a judge could enter a default judgement in their absence. If they do respond, then you’ll both proceed on to either divorce settlement negotiations, or into preparations for trial.
Either way, the most successful outcome for you lies in making sure you have a trusted family law attorney fighting at your side.
Do You Need Help with a California Divorce Complaint?
Divorce law is complicated and highly nuanced, and–on your own–filing for one can be a daunting task to undertake. However, with an experienced attorney showing you the ropes, it doesn’t have to be as stressful as you might be thinking.
For more questions on how to file a divorce complaint in California—or what to do if you’ve been served with one—we want to hear from you. Call the Maples Family Law team at (209) 989-4425, or get in touch online, and let us help guide you through this important process.
The California divorce process, step by step, includes nine major components:
Preparing paperwork to file
Filing
Serving divorce papers
Responding to the divorce
Temporary orders
Financial disclosures
Discovery
Settlement
Trial
The California Divorce Process, Step by Step
While no two divorces are exactly alike, most California divorces follow the same series of events. Every step requires you, your spouse or your attorney to take different actions, so here’s a closer look at each.
#1. Preparing paperwork to file
For most people, the best choice is to work with a Stockton divorce attorney who can provide legal advice every step of the way. Preparing paperwork to file for divorce can be complicated, and you’ll need to gather up several pieces of documentation. You need:
Birth certificates
Pay stubs
Tax returns
Mortgage statements
Retirement account statements
Credit card bills and statements
Insurance policies and other documents
Other personal or financial documents, which your attorney can explain to you
#2. Filing
When your attorney has completed the summons and petition for your divorce, she’ll file it with the court system. If you have children from your current relationship, she’ll also file a special form that outlines their residences over the past 5 years.
#3. Serving divorce papers
Serving divorce papers simply means that you’re notifying your spouse that you’ve filed for divorce. (If your spouse has already filed, there’s a good chance that you’ve been served with divorce papers.) Your attorney will handle this part for you.
Your spouse will have a chance to respond to the divorce paperwork you filed – or, if your spouse filed, you’ll have a chance to respond. If the person who receives the papers doesn’t respond within 30 days, the divorce can move forward without his or her input.
#5. Temporary orders
Sometimes temporary orders are necessary. They’re orders the judge in your case makes, which are good until the divorce is final; sometimes these orders become permanent. Judges often issue temporary orders for things like:
You and your spouse are required to disclose your financial situations to the court during the divorce process. Because California is a community property state, and because some property is considered separate property (meaning that it belongs to only one of you), the courts need an accurate picture of your situation. You’ll have to provide documentation to back up your claims, which can include:
W-2s
Check stubs
Bank statements
Federal and state income tax returns
Titles and deeds
Retirement account statements
Credit card statements
Insurance policies
You may need other documentation as well. Your attorney will explain what you need.
#7. Discovery
Discovery is the legal method of getting the information you need from your spouse during the California divorce process. Your attorney will file a formal legal request and may ask your spouse to answer written questions – and your spouse will have to admit or deny the truth of a statement under penalty of perjury. Your attorney may also want to depose your spouse, which means he or she will have to give oral testimony under penalty of perjury.
#8. Settlement
You and your spouse will reach a settlement (you can reach a settlement without Step 7 if you both agree that you’ve provided all the necessary documentation) at some point during your divorce process. The settlement is the result of a give-and-take negotiation where you and your spouse find common ground on things like property division and child custody. Your settlement agreement will also include information on:
Child custody and visitation
Child and spousal support
Property division
How you’ll handle your debts
Your new marital status and, in some cases, a name change for one party
#9. Trial
Not all divorce cases end in a trial. In fact, you only have to go to trial if all your other settlement options have failed. Either you or your spouse can request a trial, but in some cases, the judge will set one even if neither of you asks.
The best way to keep your divorce out of court (other than to get a judge’s signature on your divorce paperwork) is to settle things with your spouse on your own. Trials can be time-consuming and expensive, and if you go to trial, your divorce will take much longer than it would if you settled.
Do You Need to Talk to an Attorney About the California Divorce Process, Step by Step?
We’ve helped many people in Stockton, and we can help you, too. Call us at (209) 546-6246 to set up a consultation to talk about your case and get answers to all your questions, including those about child custody and child support, property division and more.
When you and your spouse are splitting up, there are a few ways you can go about it. Some people qualify for annulment or choose legal separation, but most people use divorce as a means to dissolve their marriages.
Divorce is a legal process. You don’t need grounds to split up from your spouse, and you don’t need to prove that he or she did anything wrong – you just have to let the courts know that you’re unable to continue living within the confines of your marriage.
So what are the legal stages of divorce in California, and how long does it take to get through them? Here’s what you need to know.
What Are the Legal Stages of Divorce in California?
Divorce, like any other legal process, has certain phases and steps you and your Stockton divorce attorney must take. Here’s a rough outline of the legal stages of divorce:
The divorce petition
Temporary orders, if necessary
Service of process
The divorce petition response
Negotiations
Trial, if necessary
Order of dissolution
Legal Stage of Divorce #1: The Divorce Petition
Every divorce starts with a petition that goes to the court. It’s a legal document asking the court to grant an order of dissolution – the document that officially ends your marriage.
Your lawyer will create a petition that states the grounds for your divorce, such as irreconcilable differences.
Legal Stage of Divorce #2: Temporary Orders
Judges don’t always have to issue temporary orders during divorce, but sometimes they’re necessary for things like child support or financial support. Temporary custody orders can come into play here, too. Once a couple splits up, they’re put in place to last until permanent orders take over.
After petitioning the court for a divorce, the party who filed is responsible for showing the court that a copy of the petition went to the other party. Your attorney will handle all of this for you – it’s not something you have to worry about, but it is one of the legal stages of divorce.
Legal Stage of Divorce #4: The Divorce Petition Response
Once your spouse gets a copy of the divorce petition, he or she will file a response to it. If he or she disagrees on things like property division, child support, child custody or anything else, they’ll be in the response.
Legal Stage of Divorce #5: Negotiations
You and your spouse can negotiate based on what’s in his or her response. Your attorney will most likely encourage you to come to your own agreements about all the important issues in your divorce. If you can’t agree, the judge in your case will have to make decisions for you – and while that’s fine if it’s necessary, you’ll save time and money if you don’t have to go to trial (that’s the next legal stage in divorce).
One thing’s for sure, though: Couples who reach their own agreements without the court having to intervene are generally more satisfied with the outcome. Each party can walk away feeling more like he or she won rather than lost. Unless you and your spouse absolutely cannot agree, it’s in your best interest to try to negotiate.
Issues that you and your spouse can’t resolve between yourselves will go to trial. Your attorney and your spouse’s attorney will present evidence to the judge in your case, and the judge will make a decision for you. Judges can make all kinds of determinations, including child custody and property division – but again, it’s better if you and your spouse can reach agreements on important issues rather than go to trial.
Remember, too, that there’s no way to predict how a judge will rule… even if you think you have all the evidence you need to get what you want.
Legal Stage of Divorce #7: Order of Dissolution
After the judge has signed off on the agreements you’ve made (or the judge has made decisions on all the issues that he or she needs to settle for you), the court will give you an order of dissolution. The order of dissolution – your divorce decree – will spell out how you’re dividing property and debts, where your kids will live, how much child support will change hands, and every other issue that you and your spouse have settled.
Need Help Understanding the Legal Stages of Divorce?
If you’re divorcing your spouse, even if he or she has already filed for dissolution, we may be able to help you.
