Dallas Divorce Lawyer Blog
There is no way that anyone can give you an exact timeline of how long your divorce will take. Each case is different. However, there are a few things that can be known for sure and this blog post is going to go through some of the things to keep in mind when trying to figure out how long your divorce is going to take.
- There is a Mandatory Waiting Period
In Texas, divorces cannot be finalized before 60 days have elapsed since the date of filing. This is almost always the case, unless a judge waives the waiting period. Typically, judges think the 60-day waiting period is a good thing and they do not waive this requirement. However, under a few extreme circumstances, such as deployment or an imminent birth that is not of the marriage, judges have been known to waive the waiting period.
- Agreements Can Speed up the Process
A divorce that is agreed upon by the parties can be finalized pretty close to the 60-day mark. Typically, it takes a week or two to get a time set to “prove-up” the divorce in front of the judge, a fancy way of saying “get the divorce finalized.” But, if parties are in agreement about what they want in a divorce and have consulted with attorneys to make sure that they have filed all of their paperwork correctly, drafted their decree properly, and that everything they have agreed to is something that a judge will be willing to sign, a divorce can get done much closer to the 60-day mark than if the parties can’t reach agreements.
- Failing to Agree on Simple Issues Can Drag the Process Out
The converse to the point above, when the parties don’t want to reach agreements, divorce can take exponentially longer to be finalized. There is no mandatory time period that a divorce must be finalized. This means that some divorces have been known to take years to finalize. There are only so many things that you can control in your divorce, if the other side wants to drag the process out, there are lots of ways that they can make that happen.
- Children Tend to Make the Divorce Take Longer
When people can’t agree on what is best for their child as far as possession and access goes, the divorce process can become much more difficult. When judges are deciding what is best for a child, they usually want a neutral third party who is more familiar with the parties to help them make the decision on possession and access. This means that judges may require counseling, attorneys to be appointed to represent the child’s best interest, home studies to be completed, or other things to be done to make sure that the child’s best interests are protected when making the final decision on where a child will live. In these scenarios, every third party that gets involved is going to involve additional costs to be incurred, as well as additional time to be spent in figuring out what is best for the child or children. Unlike some states where a divorce can be finalized without settling the issue of what will happen with children, in Texas, the final decree of divorce must address the property issues as well as children in order to be final.
- Owning Your Own Business Can Slow the Process Down
When deciding things like child support it is important to know how much money a person makes. When a person is receiving a set salary this is usually pretty simple to figure out. When a person owns their own business, things can be a little more complicated and this can cause the divorce process to take longer. Additionally, businesses can be community property and an asset subject to being divided in a divorce. Deciding what the value of a business is can be complicated which can delay finalizing a divorce and involve additional costs.
- Owning a Large Amount of Property Can Delay a Divorce
The quickest divorce to complete is a divorce where the parties do not own any property and do not have any children. When people have more things to disagree about, naturally, the process can take longer. Just getting everyone on the same page about what all of the property owned by the parties is can be something that takes a substantial amount of time in some cases.
If you have a question about how much time your divorce is going to take to complete or what issues may arise, contact Guest and Gray at (972)564-4644 and we can schedule a time for a free consult.