5 Easy Steps to Completing Your Uncontested Divorce

Whether your divorce is contested or uncontested, they all begin with the filing of the Original Petition for Divorce.  The Petition is very straight forward and will not contain many factual allegations other than what is absolutely required under the Texas Family Code.  In Texas, the Family Courts do not want many specific factual allegations in the Petition due to the ease with which a spouse could miss understand the allegations and the situation escalates more than it should.  That being said, the Petition must at least state the names of the parties, the approximate date of marriage, the grounds for divorce (in most uncontested divorces it is the Texas No Fault provision), identify the children of the marriage, state the requests for division of the marital estate, and possession, access, and child support of the children.  In an Uncontested Divorce, the Petition can be prepared very quickly and filed with the court to start the required 60 day waiting period.

The Final Decree of Divorce will contain all the necessary terms of your divorce such as the Grounds for the Divorce, Child Custody and Conservatorship Provisions, Child Support, Possession and Access to Children, Spousal Maintenance terms, and the Division of Assets and Liabilities and Name Change provisions.

If you and your spouse can agree on all of these provisions, the Uncontested Divorce Lawyers at Nick Davis Law will prepare a clear and transparent decree in an effort to increase the chances of your spouse signing it voluntarily.  Some Divorce Lawyers will always try to slip in unnecessary or other provisions that are inflammatory.  We will always advise you as to the best course of action and take careful steps to protect your interests, but when your goal is to obtain an Affordable Fast Uncontested Divorce, our lawyers will prepare your documents in a fair and straight forward manner so that your spouse will not feel that you are trying to trick them.

Always remember, we would never advise a person to sign a Final Decree of Divorce without having an attorney review it first.  Therefore, you should always anticipate that your spouse will have the Divorce Decree reviewed by a Divorce Lawyer.  In many cases, the Divorce Lawyer will go out of their way to look for provisions that could be deemed “tricky” or designed to “screw them over” or that are “unfair or unreasonable” and that “a judge would never order it.”  When this happens, you may end up in a contested divorce case that will cost many thousands of dollars more and take 8 – 12 months to resolve simply because your spouse thought you were trying to take advantage of them.

If you truly want an uncontested divorce, you will probably want our Divorce Lawyers to prepare your agreement in a manner to capture the true spirit of the agreement with your spouse.  Besides, if your spouse takes the decree to a Divorce Lawyer and they say “you could do better if you fight this” or ” a judge wouldn’t order that” but the agreement is exactly what your spouse agreed to, it will increase the chances that your spouse will say something like, “yeah, I know but we just want to move on” or ” I really don’t care” or ” I don’t want to spend a lot of money on this and fight.”  This become a rational response.  If they think you tried to take advantage of them though, they may respond irrationally and in that situation both parties lose.

To Learn More about how we can help you achieve a fast, affordable, and simple Uncontested Divorce in Montgomery, Harris, Grimes, Waller, Walker, Brazos, Washington & Surrounding Counties contact our experienced Uncontested Divorce Lawyers in The Woodlands | Conroe, TX and Bryan | College Station.

 

 

 

 

 

In every lawsuit, the court has to ensure that the other party to the suit has received fair notice.  This is done by the court issuing a citation which must be served on the other party in accordance with the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure which is normally accomplished by a constable or a private process server delivering the citation and the Original Petition for Divorce to your spouse.  The Citation is essentially a one page document generated by the Clerk of the Court that states your spouse has been sued and that if they do not file a formal answer to the lawsuit within 20 days from being served a default judgment can be taken against them.  Typically your spouse will be served at home or at work and sometimes they will not even know it is about to happen.  Clearly, a spouse that is surprised by a constable or process server will have a high likelihood of becoming angry and embarrassed.   Now, in most contested Divorce cases, an angry spouse is expected, but it is crucial that your Divorce Lawyer careful approach an uncontested case to “keep the peace” because it doesn’t take much to push an uncontested case into a contested case.  One of the easiest ways to keep tempers and anxieties low is to offer your spouse the option of signing a Waiver of Service and voluntarily accept a copy of the Petition for Divorce.  The Waiver of Service essentially verifies that the other spouse has received a copy of the lawsuit and acknowledges that they do not want to be formally served in the suit.

A word of caution here, while our Uncontested Divorce Lawyers routinely use Waiver of Services but these documents can be drafted in such a manner that a person can unknowing give up a variety of notice requirements and this could come back to bite them if their spouse is being underhanded.  Our Divorce Lawyers will diligently work to achieve their clients objectives, but we will always advise our uncontested divorce clients to allow us to prepare documents such as a Waiver of Service without broad waivers that could later be considered an effort by you to trick your spouse.  Because some Divorce Lawyers always put broad waiver language in their documents, our advise to prospective clients is to not sign a Waiver of Service.  In some cases, a waiver can be drafted in such a manner that will waive that parties ability to review and approve a final decree to be submitted to the court.  Now, if you had a relatively short marriage, with no assets and no children, this may not be a big risk.  But, if you have assets and children, this could be huge problem because once the divorce is finalized, you may not be able to repair the damage.  What happens if your spouse gives you only supervised or restricted visits to your children or obtains an excessive and unaffordable amount of Child Support or Spousal Maintenance?  What if all of your pension or retirement is awarded to your spouse?  This can happen and it may not be reversible.

If you are facing or want to pursue an Uncontested Divorce Case in Montgomery, Harris, Grimes, Waller, Walker, Brazos, Washington & Surrounding Counties
contact our experienced Uncontested Divorce Lawyers in The Woodlands | Conroe, TX and Bryan | College Station for a free case evaluation.

Texas requires that 60 days must pass after the Petition for Divorce is filed before a divorce can be granted.  There is an exception to this if the court give special leave waiving this waiting period if domestic violence occurred during the marriage.  Even so, the divorce would have to end in an agreement or a default.  Even if significant domestic violence occurred in the marriage, you will not be allowed to finalize it sooner than 60 days if your spouse will not agree.

The final step in the Uncontested Divorce Process is to appear in court and briefly testify in front of a judge.  This process is known as “proving up the divorce” or a “prove up.”  It is a very quick and simple process and nothing to be nervous about.  Once the prove up occurs and your Final Decree is signed by the judge, you are divorced.  As a general practice, our Uncontested Divorce Lawyers at Nick Davis Law, always advise clients to remain very nice and cordial with their spouse for at least 30 days following the date the divorce is granted, since a Motion for New Trial can always be filed by your spouse within that 30 day period.