[chesterlop]

I plan on completing the divorce process myself. We have only been married for 9 months and have nothing to separate. We don't have children, a house, and have not made a single large purchase together. Neither of us want to fight over anything, we simply want to get the divorce behind us as quickly and smoothly as possible.

I live in Georgia. Do we both have to appear at a hearing in front of a judge, or is the process simply paperwork? I think I have all the documents needed, however, it's slightly confusing regarding whether we will have to appear in a court room in front of a judge.

Any advice/help would be great.

[Fr_Chuck]

On a uncontested divorce, if all of the paper work is done correctly
( they do have paralegals in GA that do all the paper work for you, that state allows paralegal ot operate separate offices not connected with attorneys)

But you merely file the paperwork with the court, the judge signs it and basically 30 days after the judge signs it , you are officially divorced.

(not sure why or if the 30 day rule is still in effect but it was as of about 10 year ago in GA) I guess it is a period to allow each party to receive their copies of the court papers. Check with the clerk, I believed three orgninal copies of all the paper work had to be submitted but it has been a while.

Of course if anything is not filled out correctly it will be returned without actually telling you what was not filled out correctly normally,

[chesterlop]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm glad we don't have to appear in court, that would make the process tougher for both of us. I wasn't sure because a book I've been reading "How to file for divorce in Georgia" made it seem like we may have to appear in court. However, there is a book by the same author with the same title for just about every state, so I was hoping that wasn't true for GA, and was just a general rule.

Just to make sure I'm completing the correct paperwork- I have a Petition for Divorce, Affidavit of Consent, and a Marital Settlement Agreement. Do we simply complete these forms and file them with the court? It can't be that simple...

Is there anything I should be aware of?

[Fr_Chuck]

And pay the fee to file the papers in court, the last time I did one in GA, they wanted 3 original not copies of where you signed, If you are using the basic fill in the blank forms, of course keep some blank ones in case you make an error. There are also some online companies that will do the forms for you also.

But remember most of this is guidelines, you county may have a judge who likes to lector the divorcing couple or question them but normally this is not done in non contested divorces. Your judge does have the option to require you to appear.

Normally he merely signs these types of papers in his office during his office hours.

[chesterlop]

I want the process to go as smoothly as possible to not make it any harder on both of us than it has to be.

- Are there any reasons the judge wouldn't sign off on the divorce? I plan to fill out the forms I received online.

- Do we need to list financial info on the agreement? The reason I ask is because we already created separate bank accounts and split up our finances. We don't have any joint accounts. Each of us are taking the items we owned prior to marriage, we have not made any large purchases during our marriage. There is really nothing to separate, I was thinking of listing in the agreement something like "Both husband and wife are entitled to everything owned prior to marriage" (of cource is a more professional way).

- How will we know when the divorce is final?

I appreciate the help.