Nolo's Essential Guide to Divorce - Emily Doskow [28]
It's better to give your spouse every chance to respond-even write a reminder letter, keeping a copy to show the court if you do ask for a default. If your spouse never does respond, get the default paperwork and complete the divorce yourself.
By Agreement
In some states, you can agree with your spouse that you'll have the divorce entered by default. In that case, one of you will file for divorce, and the other will simply not file any responsive papers. The person who filed would then go ahead and ask the court to sign the final judgment of divorce, the document that ends your marriage. In general, you would want to do this only if you don't have kids and don't need to divide any property-or if you've agreed that the person who files can keep whatever you have accumulated during the marriage. (See "Preparing and Filing Legal Papers" and "How the Other Spouse Can Respond," below, for more about how this would work.)
The main reason for agreeing on a default divorce over an uncontested divorce where both spouses appear is if one spouse is agreeable to getting divorced and to dividing property fairly, but doesn't want to he involved in the court process or do any paperwork. In that case, the filing spouse can take care of the details and the other can just sit hack and let it happen. You also save on filing fees-the defaulting spouse doesn't have to pay the fee for filing responsive papers.
If Your Spouse Is Missing
Sometimes, married couples drift apart without ever getting a divorceespecially if they marry young and then grow into different lives, or if the marriage was one of convenience. Neither person really cares that they don't know exactly where the other is-until someone starts thinking about marrying again and realizes that there's some paperwork that needs taking care of.
If you don't know where your spouse is, your first task is to look. You're required to make a sincere effort to locate a missing spouse before asking the court to grant a default divorce. That means doing at least the following things:
• Find the last known address of your spouse. You will have to tell the court how, when, and from whom you obtained it.
• Check that address. If the people living there have no information about where you can find your spouse, ask the neighbors on the right and left. You can do this either by letter, in person, or by sending an investigator.
• If the last known address is a mental or penal institution, ask the person in charge of the institution for current address information, and then contact that address.
• Ask every relative, friend, former employer, and other person you know who might be likely to know where your spouse is. You'll have to submit a written summary of your efforts to the court, listing their names and relationship to your spouse, and the dates and results of your inquiries.
• If the court requires it (check with your county clerk or social worker), contact the military services to see whether your spouse is in the military. The military has become much more closemouthed about the location of service personnel since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and each branch has its own procedures, so you'll need to be persistent if you are required to check on this. Chapter 12, on military divorce, lists resources.
• If your spouse owned a house, phone the tax assessor's office in the county of your spouse's last known address. Ask for current information.
• Put your spouse's name into an Internet search engine such as Google. There are also Internet services that you can use to locate people for a small fee; this is a good thing to do if you can afford it, because it will show the court that you really tried.
• Follow up any other lead you can think of, including contacts with unions, trade associations, or licensing agencies that may have information.
Keep