What’s the Divorce Process in Texas?
In this video, Attorney Rachel Rust outlines the divorce process in Texas. This is a general discussion of the process, and if you’re getting divorced in Texas, your process will depend on your unique facts and circumstances. For an appointment with Rachel at her Fulshear office, please call 800-929-1725.
The process of divorce in Texas starts with establishing jurisdiction and then with the filing of a Petition for Divorce by one party and a waiver or answer by the other spouse. Rachel also reviews some of the factors that increase the cost of divorce in this video.
Summary of the Texas Divorce Process Video
Rachel is an of-counsel attorney with the law firm of Wadler, Perches, Kerlick with offices in Fulshear, Richmond, Bay City and Wharton.
Outline of the Texas Divorce Process — Jurisdiction
Rachel Rust: – So, one of the topics or questions I get asked commonly is what is the process of divorce in Texas.
The first thing you have to establish is jurisdiction and that’s just a fancy legal word that has to do with where you’ve lived for the last three months and the last six months and to make sure the court has jurisdiction to grant a divorce.
Outline of the Texas Divorce Process — File a Petition for Divorce
A divorce is started by a legal petition being filed which is called a petition for divorce. The process starts by filing a petition. A petition is, again, another word for something, a piece of paper that’s asking the court for relief. So, one side files a petition and then it is served on the other side or handed to the other side. The other side has to have notice that a divorce has been started. The government does not favor folks getting a divorce without knowing that they’re being divorced. So, there’s a requirement for the other side to be notified.
The next thing that happens is that the person who didn’t file either has to answer or they have to waive. Waiving is not this, it is waiving that a process server or a constable or sheriff’s deputy shows up at your work or at your home and hands you a piece of paper that is the Petition for Divorce along with a notice that you’re getting divorced. You have to answer, you have to file that answer within so many days of being served. I won’t go into all of those details ’cause really you need to talk to an attorney about those things, but that’s the process.
Outline of the Texas Divorce Process — Getting to the Final Decree of Divorce
After a divorce has been filed and answered or waived, then there may be temporary hearing orders or you may, if you’ve agreed to everything, have a final decree of divorce entered.
That final decree has to solve all the issues of the marriage. Typically there are three that have to do with children if there are children involved, and there are two other ones. So, the children issues are custody, what’s commonly called visitation although parents often object to visiting with their own child, but it’s the time sharing arrangement of the children, and then child support.
The other two that have to do with non-children issues are the division of assets and debts and whether or not spousal support is going to be paid from one side to the other.
How you get to that piece of paper is the meat of it. There are several ways you can do that. One is that you can sit down with a legal pad kind of like this with your soon to be spouse and you can divide things up.
Sorry, soon to be ex-spouse and you can divide things up, say who’s going to pay which bills, what you’re going to do about the house, how you’re going to share the children. That’s the cheapest, fastest, easiest way to do it but a lot of people can’t do that, even when they want to solve it, there’s just too many bad feelings and so they need a little help.
So they might get help with mediation or they might get help with an attorney who has been hired to help try to solve the case. Sometimes with the help of attorneys, people can work through their differences and come up with an agreement. Everything involving attorneys doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to go to trial.
Trial is the last way to do that and it is often the most expensive, both emotionally and monetarily. It costs a lot of money to go to court and a lot of people will settle the case somewhere along the way, whether it’s at the beginning, it’s after you’ve exchanged documents and information, or, honestly, on the Court House steps.
Factors Influencing the Cost of the Divorce Process
Most divorces are not tried, but the cost of a divorce depends on how close to that trial you get before you resolve it. Cost depends on a lot of things. The main thing, I think, to keep in mind is that attorneys charge for their time, so it’s absolutely true that you’re, how much time an attorney has to spend on a case will determine the ultimate cost. However, it’s not all on the attorney’s judgment as to how long they spend on the case. Sometimes clients demand certain things to be done. Sometimes the client doesn’t know what they own or how their finances are held. So, the facts of the case also will determine, and the complexity.
If you have a mom and pop business, how you value that, if it’s valued. And so there are a lot of other factors that go into the cost, but, you’re right, it ultimately boils down to how much time the attorney has to spend to end up, excuse me, with that piece of paper that resolves all those issues.
It’s also how much stuff you have and how many years you’ve been together and also how many things you’ve agreed on, if you have resolved most of the issues but only have two or three, then those two or three could be ironed out with not a lot of time, unless the reason they haven’t been agreed upon are things like we can’t agree how much the family business is worth or we can’t agree on what the house is worth. So in cases like that, you may have to get an expert opinion, and whether you can agree on an expert to give you that information or whether you’re going to have a battle of the experts will determine how much the cost of the divorce ends up being.
I would say that you have to end up with a legal document that the judge can sign and your divorce is final when the judge signs it. So, sometimes people will say, when is it final, and in that final divorce, it can have a change of name if you, if the wife wants to resume her maiden name or it may have other ramifications for taking someone off of insurance and Social Security if you’ve changed your name, changing it with Social Security and the DMV.
So a lot of people will ask, when are they going to have that final document because they need a certified copy of that document to take to those other entities to divide retirements accounts or change property, exchange property pursuant to what you’ve agreed to.