How to file for divorce in California?

Not all divorce cases need an attorney. If you and your partner are civil and things are just not working out you can absolutely file for divorce without an attorney. Please note this only applies to partners who don’t have a complex divorce case. If you have assets or children you will most likely need to contact us to guide you through the divorce process.

1. First step to filing for divorce in California

   You will visit the following website: https://www.courts.ca.gov/forms.htm?filter=D to start the petition process. You should reach this page.

Basic Information

This guide is for a basic divorce without complications, if there are complications then we suggest you contact us and go through this process with one of our attorneys. Now, you can start this process by filling out your basic information such as: name, your street address, city, telephone number, ect. It is very important that you put your email so the court can contact you as well as potentially your spouses attorney. Since you are trying to file a petition for divorce without an attorney you can skip the sections that ask for firm name and state bar number. Under the the section that asks for “attorney for (name): you will put down “in pro per” and your name because you are representing yourself.

Superior court of California information

This section is pretty straight forward just fill out the courts name and address of which you are filing in. If you do not know this information you can acquire it from the courts website.

Petition for section

Since you are the petitioner in the matter you will put your name, then put your spouses name in the respondent. Since this is a simple divorce with no children you are going to check the box that says dissolution (divorce) of: marriage.

2. Legal relationship

In this section you will check the box stating that we are married.

3. Residence requirements

This sections has to do with your residence requirements. For Orange County and California you have to be a resident for at least 6 months. You have to be a resident of the county you are filing in for at least 3 months before filing a petition for divorce. In this example we are assuming that you meet these residence requirements so all you need to do is check box 2.a stating that you are the petitioner.

Now if you don’t meet the residence requirements but your spouse does then you would check the respondent box instead.

The other two boxes are for domestic partnerships and don’t apply to this example. We are working on a post in regards to domestic partnerships however, if you need immediate assistance you can always give us a call or email.

4. Statistical facts

This section is primarily for the court to ascertain when the marriage started and the length of your marriage. These dates are VERY IMPORTANT and you should strive to be as accurate as you can because it will affect the division of property.

First, you will fill out the date of when you were married. Then you need you specify the date of separation.

5. Minor Children

As stated previously this example is for a very basic divorce so we are assuming that you don’t have children so we are simply going to check the box that says that.

6. Legal grounds

7. Child custody and visitation

Since we are only dealing with a simple divorce in this example you can go ahead and skip this section.

8. Child Support

As stated above since we don’t have children in this example you can skip this section.

9. Spousal or domestic support

Here we have a couple of options since we are the petitioner. If you are the higher earner you may want to ask the courts to terminate the courts ability to spousal support for the respondent. If that is the case you will want to check box b and check the respondent box. I wouldn’t recommend checking that box if you have been married for over 10 years. If you are the lower earner and you want spousal support you will check box a. and check payable to petitioner. If you both are wealthy and independent or if you aren’t sure what you want yet you can check box c to reserve for future determination.

9. Separate property

In this section there are two types of property the court has to deal with.

Community property- any property acquired during marriage

Separate property- property acquired prior to marriage

Separate property will stay outside the division of property during the divorce. However, community property is what you and the court will have to figure out and divide. We need to let the court know if there is any separate property. If you don’t have any separate property issues that the court needs to deal with, you can go ahead and check box a. Most often property is acquired during marriage and if that applies to you then you will want to check box b. In the subset of box you have a couple options here. You can choose to fill out a property declaration form FL-160 which is a judicial council form. Or you can check option 9b and give the court an itemized list of your separate property prior to getting married. At the Complex Divorce Center we usually suggest for our clients that they check 9b and then in say “The exact extend and nature of separate property has not been determined and I will amend this list once property is ascertained”. Stating this will allow you to gather the information you need and really just allows you to have more time and avoid making a mistake.

10. Community and quasi community property

Alright if you made it this far then you are almost done with your petition for divorce! Like in previous steps we are going to sign our name under the petitioner section. Now this section is very similar to the section we just talked about except it deals with quasi community property. Quasi community property is property acquired during marriage outside of the state in which you are petitioning for divorce. For this example, we are in California so we are talking about property outside of California. We are going to hand this section just like we did the previous one and check paragraph b and click the last box and inform the court that you will amend this at a later.

11. Other Requests

This section covers any other requests you might have as well as attorney fees and name restoration. It is pretty straight forward, if you want your attorney fees covered and you are the petitioner you will go ahead and check that box. If you want your maiden name restored then you check that box and specify your maiden name.

12. Now you’re finished and just need to sign the document.

We hope this was helpful and informative if you have any specific questions you can absolutely contact us through the for below or give us a call.