This article will discuss the issue of getting a divorce in California when your spouse lives in another state. We will discuss how you can accomplish your divorce when you are living in different states or even different Countries.
First, let’s talk about jurisdiction. Only one of you have to live in the State of California to file for divorce. Just make sure you meet the criteria to file which means being a resident of the State of California for at least 6 months and of the County for the at least the last 3 months immediately preceding the filing of the Petition for divorce in California.
We have many clients who have been separated for a while and they are just getting around to filing for divorce in California. Sometimes this results in one of the parties moving out of states. Here is how we deal with this.
You will file your divorce case in the County you live in. For instance, we are in Santa Clarita, which in in Los Angeles County. Because we do not have branch court, all our filings go to the San Fernando Courthouse.
Once you have filed, the next step is to serve your spouse. And you don’t have to hire a process server if your spouse will cooperate. We use an not well known process called, “Notice of Acknowledgment of Receipt”. This allows you to mail your initial filing documents to your spouse. When they sign the acknowledgment and return it to you, file a proof of service. This is an effective way to serve your spouse without having to hire a process server and is a perfectly acceptable way to serve these papers.
Once you have completed the service, the County in which you filed now has jurisdiction over your spouse and can make the final orders over your divorce case.
We get this question a lot and wanted to address it on our blog so hopefully folks with this same questions can find the answer here.
We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm that specializes in California divorce. We provide a flat fee divorce service that takes care of your entire divorce from start to finish.
