Many people think that filling out and filing the complaint with the court is the first step to beginning divorce in New Jersey. This is not necessarily true. When you file, you start the formal process of ending your marriage. But before you get to that point, you can start to plan, get educated, and discuss how your divorce proceeds, the issues involved, and your ideal wishes for resolution. By knowing what you want to get in your divorce and being as prepared as you can be for what is to come, you increase your chances of getting advantageous terms.
GET EXPERIENCED LEGAL GUIDANCE WHEN STARTING A NJ DIVORCE
Seek out guidance from an experienced law firm in New Jersey when beginning your divorce. This is especially important when you are undertaking a high-net-worth divorce with extensive and complex properties, investments, business interests, and other assets. Your lawyer will help you think through your goals, come away with more of the things that are important to you, and ensure your rights are protected from the beginning to the end of the process.
PLAN AHEAD FOR YOUR DIVORCE
For your own benefit and to help your lawyer help you, do some pre-divorce planning. Pull together legal and financial documents and paperwork. Compile an inventory of your assets and property. List what you consider to be your separate assets and gather documentation and other evidence that could serve to prove that a property is yours alone. Only marital property is divided in divorce, but there can be a fine line between marital and separate property, so identify all of it from the start to discuss with your attorney under attorney-client privilege. And don’t forget your debts, which will also be subject to division if they are considered marital liabilities. If you plan to move out of the residence you share with your spouse during divorce proceedings, it’s wise to gather copies of all documents and paperwork before doing so and do not move out voluntarily until you speak with your attorney.
If you are expecting to pay alimony, discuss your concerns with your attorney, who will begin strategizing to help you obtain fair payments. If you are worried about what will happen to your business, it’s smart to start these discussions with your attorney to determine what exposure there may or may not be. . Is keeping the family home important to you? Think about assets your spouse may accept in exchange for the house, if negotiating the residence is a possibility. If you have minor kids at home, consider how you would like custody issues to resolve. This is the thinking part of the process, and you should not take any action on those thoughts until you workshop it out with your attorney, as there is so much more to learn about the law and the impact of what you are thinking about that it would be to your short and long term detriment to rush through this.
There are many things you can talk about with your lawyer that will put you ahead of the curve before you file a complaint.
FILE FOR YOUR DIVORCE
To file for divorce, you or your spouse must have lived in New Jersey for at least one year. The exception is if you file on adultery grounds. In this case, the residency requirement is a minimum of six months. You must also file in a county where you or your spouse live.
Choosing Grounds
In your divorce complaint, you must give a reason, or ground, for why you want to divorce. Most people file on the no-fault ground of irreconcilable differences. But for some people, there may be advantages to filing on a fault ground, which your attorney can explain if this applies to your circumstances.
Grounds for divorcing under N.J.S.A. 2A:34-2 include the following:
- Adultery
- Desertion
- Deviant sexual conduct
- Drug or alcohol addiction
- Extreme cruelty
- Imprisonment
- Institutionalization for mental illness
- Separation of over 18 months.
If you file on a fault ground, be prepared to potentially go through a more contentious divorce. If your spouse disputes your reason for ending the marriage—which they well might—you will have to provide evidence to the court of your spouse’s adultery, cruelty, or other issue. Proceed with this approach with caution as emotions are already running high, and this most certainly will exacerbate it, which means a more long drawnout process, uncooperativeness, and extraordinary counsel fees.
Filing the Paperwork and Serving the Summons
You will file the complaint and other appropriate paperwork and pay the filing fees with the New Jersey court. After filing, you have 120 days to have your spouse served with the divorce summons, but it’s always best to serve sooner, rather than later. You must provide proof to the court that your spouse received the summons. Your spouse has 35 days to respond to the summons once it is served. (If they fail to respond for some reason, the court may grant the divorce in your favor.) Your attorney will handle completing forms, filing forms, and identifying a process server to ensure that these steps are properly completed and served.
UNCONTESTED AND CONTESTED DIVORCE
There are two general categories of divorce: uncontested and contested. In uncontested divorce, you decide the issues for yourselves. In contested divorce, a New Jersey judge does it for you.
Negotiating The Issues of Divorce
You and your spouse will have many decisions to make when your marriage is ending. If your relationship is such that divorce issues can be negotiated to agreement, which your respective attorneys can help with, your divorce will ultimately be considered uncontested. You will be able to sign off on a marital settlement agreement and present it to the court for approval.
You must agree on all the issues for your divorce to be uncontested. They include but are not limited to:
- Division of property and debts
- Alimony
- Child custody and visitation
- Child support.
It can take time and significant back and forth to come to agreement. Sometimes working with a mediator can help. Until you and your spouse come to an agreement, your matter is considered contested. Once an agreement is reached on all issues, then it is considered uncontested.
When You Cannot Come to Agreement
Some couples have too much animosity between them to even attempt negotiating a divorce settlement. Maybe one or both spouses may want to win at all costs out of spite, revenge, or just to hurt the other. Even divorcing spouses with relatively friendly relationships may simply be unable to agree on certain items, especially if it is something they both want. When an agreement can’t be reached, the court will ultimately make determinations on the issues but probably not until after all other alternative dispute resolution mechanisms have been tried.
For affluent individuals with extensive assets, how properties will be divvied up can be a primary concern. In New Jersey, judges divide assets and debts using equitable distribution, which is not necessarily a 50/50 split but rather what they believe is a fair split based on the financial situations of spouses, standard of living, length of the marriage, and various other factors.
GET EXPERIENCED AND UNDERSTANDING LEGAL HELP FROM BEGINNING TO END OF YOUR DIVORCE
When you are starting out on the path to divorce, the process can feel confusing, stressful, and overwhelming. Unless you have been divorced in the past—which many people have not—you may not even know where to begin. You may wonder how you will ever get through it, especially if you have a complex financial situation and children’s concerns to resolve.
You can rest easier when you work with one of our experienced divorce attorneys from [MFR} Men’s & Fathers’ Rights Divorce Lawyers in New Jersey. We will guide you from beginning to end of the process, addressing your concerns, knocking down roadblocks, and smoothing the way forward to post-divorce life. We always work hard to get the best possible outcomes for our divorcing clients.
To speak with an attorney in a confidential consultation, call (201) 880-9770. We provide honest and effective divorce representation.
