Filing For Divorce Does Not Mean You’re Divorced

I can’t tell you how many calls i get every week where someone tells me that they filed for divorce years ago only to learn they never completed their divorce.

I bring this up because I want to tell you how this can happen.

Today i got a call from someone who said they already have all the divorce papers completed and just wanted me to file and serve them for them.  ( I already suspected this would not be the case) but said go ahead and send over what you have and i will take a look at it.

She emails me “all” the divorce papers she completed.  What did i find?  All she had completed was the initial divorce papers that need to be filed and served.  I told her that this is just the first set of forms to get the divorce case filed.

She said she was told that these were the only forms that she needed to file for divorce.  Ahh! That makes sense.

These are the only forms that you need to “file” for divorce, but are far from all the forms you need to complete your divorce.

And so begins the confusion about divorce and the divorce process.  This person only had the initial divorce forms needed to get the case started, not finished.

I was discussing our fees for us to provide our service and she asked why she would have to pay the fee if she “already completed ALL the divorce forms?”

I had to tell her that she has not completed ALL the divorce forms and had only just begun.  She said she must have not understood.  That part i agreed with!

Divorce and the divorce process in California is not something you want to attempt on your own.  Despite my warnings, many still do.

Had i not intervened and helped clarify how the California divorce process works, this would have been another person who “filed” for divorce and assumed their divorce was complete.

Make sure you finish you divorce.  How do you do that?  Give us a call and we will complete your entire divorce from start to finish and help save you money on court filing fees.