St. Charles and the rest of Missouri has a 30-day waiting period for divorce, beginning on the day your divorce petition is filed.
Once you file for divorce, you are required to serve a copy of the petition to your spouse. The recipient spouse has 30 days to respond. If you and the other party cannot agree to the terms of the divorce petition, you can use the 30-day waiting period to reach a settlement. If an agreement cannot be reached and a trial is necessary, the divorce will be finalized in at least one year.
If you cannot locate your spouse, the process will be longer. If you decide to serve the petition by notifying your spouse through the newspaper, he/she has 45 days to respond after the notice has been published.
If there are no issues or objections to any of the terms laid out in the petition, the divorce can be finalized after 31 days. However, these cases are often rare.
If your spouse doesn’t respond to your petition at all, you can enter a default against him via court request, which can take a month or more to finalize. Once you file a default request, the court will then schedule a hearing date for “default and inquiry.”
If you are interested in filing for divorce in St. Charles, contact our skilled legal team at Smith Law Offices, LLC today.