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Uncontested Divorce
An uncontested divorce is a divorce case where both parties agree on all issues concerning the marriage. The parties agree on custody, support, visitation, division of assets, allocation of debt, and any other issue that pertains to the parties. An uncontested case is typically going to be completed within about three to five weeks. There is one court appearance that is required in an uncontested case, whereby the person filing the petition or the petitioner has to appear in front of the judge along with his or her attorney, and present the case to the judge for finalization.
The final court date in an uncontested case is known as the prove-up. Prove-up is just a word for saying we’re bringing the proofs in front of the judge, we’re asking the judge to sign the judgment, to make it official, and we’re going to present several of the terms and agreements that have been made part of the judgment. The judge is going to want to know that each party signed the documents and that they made a knowing signature.
The judge is also going to want to hear testimony concerning custody, support, visitation, maintenance, division of property, allocation of debt, division of retirement accounts, and any other issue that the court feels is appropriate under the particular fact situation of the case.
An uncontested case is relatively inexpensive. There are court costs involved and there are attorneys’ fees involved. In a typical uncontested case, we can break the attorneys’ fees and court costs down into payments. What I require is the court costs down to file the case and then I require the attorney’s fees at the final court date.
Thus, an uncontested case is not only swift and speedy, but it is also affordable. By offering a payment plan, we can start the paperwork for just the court costs down. Sometimes we even work a payment plan on the court costs themselves. Provided both parties are willing to go through with an uncontested case, we can achieve a divorce action in approximately four to six weeks total time.