How to Stop a Divorce After it is Filed

If a divorce has been filed and the parties reconcile, the divorce action can be dropped by agreement of the parties. The parties need to file a Voluntary Order of Dismissal, to dismiss the case with the court. If the Respondent has appeared in the action in any way (filing a Response, etc.), then the Order must be signed by both parties. If the Respondent has not yet appeared in any manner, then it is only necessary to be filed by the Petitioner (moving party). A wise approach is to make sure that the reconciliation is working before dropping the legal action, especially if there are Temporary Orders in effect.

If the parties are not in agreement to drop the action, the Respondent cannot unilaterally stop the action.

The Renton law firm of Mogren, Glessner & Roti, represents clients in a variety of family law cases, including divorces and legal separations. We have 4 attorneys for you to chose from. Please visit our web page at Seattle Divorce Lawyers for more information.

How to Serve Spouse if you Cannot Locate Them?

Often times, clients want to start the divorce process, but do not know how to locate them. Traditionally, to fulfill due process requirements, the party to the divorce is personally served with the papers by someone other than a party to the action. Obviously that becomes impossible when you do not know how to locate them. So, what do you do?

There is a statute in Washington (RCW 4.28.100) that allows you to serve a summons by publication in a local newspaper. You must have court approval first to do this. There are several statutory basises for this, the primary one being that the other party "being a resident of this state, has departed therefrom with intent to defraud his creditors, or to avoid the service of a summons, or keeps himself concealed therein with like intent". If your spouse is hiding out to avoid being served, you have the legal basis.

To do this, you must first file an affidavit of due diligence. This is an affidavit stating that you have done all you can to try to find the other party. You must show that you have used "due diligence". This would include things like asking family and friends, checking with employers, calling phone numbers, checking forwarding addresses, and Internet searches. Sometimes this might include hiring a private investigator to do the due diligence search.

If the court approves the process, you can then serve the other party by publishing the summons in a legal newspaper once a week for six consecutive weeks.

The Renton law firm of Mogren, Glessner & Roti, represents clients in a variety of family law cases, including divorces where we cannot locate a spouse. We have 4 attorneys for you to chose from. Please visit our web page at Washington Divorce Lawers for more information.

Debt Division in Washington Divorce

As part of an action for the dissolution of a marriage, the Court must determine the division of the parties debts and liabilities. The standard the Court uses is not necessarily and equal division of the debts, but a fair and equitable division, considering all of the circumstances.

The Court will usually order one party to pay a debt, and indemnify and hold the other party harmless from the responsibility of the debt. This order however, is between the two parties only, and does not effect the third party creditor. That means that if the obligated spouse fails to pay the debt, the creditor can still come against the released spouse in collection. If this happens, you have a right to get a judgment against the obligated spouse and collect your costs.

The Court will consider many factors in dividing the debts, including the length of marriage, the economic circumstances of each party, the terms of spousal maintenance, if any, and any other relevant factor.

The Renton law firm of Mogren, Glessner & Roti, represents clients in a variety of family law cases, including divorces with the division of debts. We have 4 attorneys for you to chose from. Please visit our web page at http://www.mgrlaw.com/ for more information.