The desire to end an unhappy marriage often makes couples rush the process and make a lot of mistakes. Before coping with their emotions, they hurry to file their dissolution petition and have their marital status canceled as quickly as possible and all they get is stress, excessive expenditures, and prolongations in a divorce procedure due to the lack of knowledge on how to do it properly. In this post, we will describe what to do to terminate your marriage relatively fast and at a reasonable price.
The Average Divorce Cost in CA
Divorce costs in California change and predominantly rely upon the sort of marriage disintegration you need to seek after:
- A contested one assumes that you and your ex disagree on any or a portion of the monetary and child related issues in your divorce. For this situation, every single one of you should get a legal counselor and spend somewhere in the range of $10,000 to $35,000.
- An uncontested one, then again, requires you and your ex to be in full understanding concerning how you need to end things. This is the least expensive method for getting a divorce in California as you don’t have to recruit a legal counselor, and can either manage the desk work yourself or get it from an internet-based assistance. No matter what your decision, a marriage disintegration will cost you under $1,000.
Choose to not contest the terms of your marriage dissolution
According to onlinedivorcecalifornia.com, this is the first decision you need to make to launch the process of an affordable divorce in California. Talk to your partner and reach an agreement on a peaceful legal split-up which means that you are not going to ask a court to resolve any disputes between you, be it a division of your house, cars, money, kids’ custody, etc.
Couples that are getting divorced in California without fights in a courtroom save at least $400 in attorneys’ fees and this is because they research the matter beforehand. During the preparation for divorce, they find out that they will get their assets divided equally if they choose to settle their agreement first as well as if they were to contest it in front of a judge, so why spend time on fighting and attorneys?
Identify the appropriate court to submit documents
After you manage to find a common language with your soon-to-be-ex, consider locating the court that will work on your case. To submit your petition and other papers in California, you should be living in the state at least for half a year and at least a quarter year in the county where the court is located. These demands are a must for everyone who wants to end their marriage in this state.
Collect and fill out all needed forms
The next step to cheap divorce in California is doing the paperwork on your own. Trust us, you can fill out all the papers without spending a fortune on a lawyer: all you need to do is go to a local clerk’s office to get the package for filing, and then fill them out at home.
If you need divorce advice, California clerks can explain the meaning of each form and what you should write there; however, they cannot provide consultation on how to settle disputes or combine the written agreement for you. If you need such help, you can order marriage dissolution papers online and have them filled out and ready for submission in less than a day.
Submit them to the court and deliver them to your partner
Once you get your forms finished, collect them, and bring them to the court for registration. You will get the number of your case that is worth remembering or marking in your phone notes to be able to track your case processing.
After that, you will need to bring the dissolution papers to your partner so that they can be aware of the opening of your case. Your wife or husband will also have to sign the paper confirmation of receiving the documents and return it to the court. The judge will review your papers after these steps are taken.
Prepare financial documents
The next step that will take you closer to your marriage termination is preparing papers regarding your family’s financial situation. This is for the judge to know how much money, credits, retirement bank accounts, etc. you have and how to split them right. Also, it will be necessary for completing a quality settlement agreement that a judge could approve from the first submission. While legal counselors charge something else for resources, obligations, and the inclusion of children, with us, the cost continues as before regardless of the family or monetary circumstance.
Sign the agreement regarding all issues after divorce
This is the most important document that you need to compose for a cheap divorce in California: here, all the issues arising out of your split-up should be listed and the ways they will be resolved be presented as well. Don’t worry if it’s hard to write this paper from the first attempt. Composing a few drafts and improving them until you get a perfect agreement is absolutely normal.
Wait for a judge to review your case and give you their decision on your marriage dissolution.
The last but not least thing that you need to do is have enough patience to wait for your case to be reviewed and decided on. The waiting period in California is half a year now, so get ready for this time to pass before you can have your marriage dissolution decree from a judge.
At this time, you can concentrate on your relationships with kids, your wellness and mental health, your job, and your vacation. What you shouldn’t do until you get divorced is engage in suspicious activities like dating strangers, posting your divorce details online, and practicing bad habits since all these actions may hurt your positive image in court and affect your chances of getting kids’ custody at least.
