Understanding the Divorce Process in Georgia: What You Need to Know

in Georgia parties can decide to get a divorce and here’s how it works the first thing you have to do is get a petition and get the documentation necessary to serve the other party with your divorce complaint meaning in Georgia the way in which you get a divorce is you have to file paperwork with the courthouse to be more specific what actually happens in the process is the following one there has to be a complaint and summons drafted to give to the other side showing that you intend to get a divorce a summons has the particularity or a summons has the information about how they respond to the petition at the court requires after the summons you actually have the complaint the complaint is the actual documentation or the actual document that’s been filed with the court that signals to the other party that you want a divorce in Georgia state law allows for 13 Reasons to get a divorce the most common use when is irreconcilable differences that’s when the parties have decided that they don’t want to be together and get a divorce once the complaint has been filed with the court and given to the other party for them to be served the next thing that happens is that you have to wait for their response if they do not respond within 30 days a judge could Grant the divorce on the 31st day if they do respond in that amount of time the thing that happens next is that you have to decide the route the case is going to take if the parties are going to settle the divorce which means you’re going to file the appropriate paperwork together and that allows the judge to give a final order that’s one path another path it can take is that if the parties decide they don’t agree on certain matters that’s for the judge to decide Georgia is also unique in this respect in Georgia you can have a judge trial or you can have a jury trial the jury trial doesn’t cover all matters but it does cover most matters about Asset Division meaning custody will always be left up to the judge to determine it would not go to a jury that’s a unique fact about divorce in Georgia if the parties do not agree on matters you can have temporary hearings up until you get to a final hearing or you can just have a final Hearing in these hearings that’s when the judge makes a determination about facts and next steps in the case a judge will sign an order and that order that’s signed will be what the conduct and what should be happening between the parties that order is enforcable under Georgia law there can be a series of temporary hearings and those temporary hearings can lead you to mediation or you can mediate without having a temporary hearing what mediation is is where the parties get together and sit down and try to resolve all of their issues a trained mediator is a person that the court has determined can help couples and parties work through the matter a mediator is a person who the court assigns or who the parties can go to voluntarily to determine how to resolve their marriage when you go to mediation it is voluntary what happens in mediation is the parties are led by a mediator to come up with a compromise on all issues that would resolve the marriage that’s child support that could be custody that could be assets that could be debt that could be alimony all issues surrounding the couple will hopefully be decided in mediation and if so there’ll be a joint agreement that the mediator would write up and when the mediator writes that agreement up that will be submitted to the court it will be submitted to the court to become a final order when that occurs the parties can be divorced or if the parties are not agreeing they can have a series of hearings and ultim a final hearing and the judge will decide all the matters between the parties in Georgia to be able to divide assets the court uses what’s called Equitable division to make that determination what Equitable division is in Georgia is a judge making a determination from Facts they’re presented about what should be the separation of assets between parties many people know about community property states such as California where in a community property state is 50/50 split of all of the assets however that’s not the case in Georgia Georgia is an equitable division State and in an equitable division State what happens is a judge makes a determination of what is Equitable between the parties what that means is a judge from hearing information from the parties can make a determination as to what is Equitable between the parties meaning instead of 50/50 Asset Division could be 60 40 it could be 703 it could be 100% 0% that all depends on the fact is given to the judge the judge can make that determination or there’s a second way to be able to do that that that second way of doing that is going to a jury Georgia is a jury trial state so what that means is that they could be a jury of your peers who decide what the Asset Division should be that would be anything related to property that could be anything related to pensions 401ks major assets such as cars houses Etc that could be decided by a jury in Georgia and you would get a jury verdict as to what each party gets in Georgia the equation for alamon is not scientific at all it is simply this the demonstrated need versus the other person’s ability to pay the person’s demonstrated need who’s requesting it and the other party who supposedly has the money their ability to pay and so you may ask what happens in a determination like this and that’s up to the court to decide but it can be based on the income disparities between the party it could be based on an agreements that the party May the parties may have made about what the incomes would be it could be based on a variety of factors but demonstrated need must be something that’s tangible I need $1,500 more a month to be able to live in an apartment or a house the other party has $1,500 a month that they can pay to the party who needs it at that point that would be eligible for alimony the best way to think about alimon is this way does the party requesting it actually need it and can the other party pay it so what that means is is the party who can pay alimony after they are able to live and provide for themselves do they have enough excess money that they would be able to pay to the other side for the other side to live and that’s how you determine alimony in Georgia most alimony is determined after 10 years most judges look at alimony is something that You’ be eligible for after 10 years that’s not to say that people don’t get alimony after having been married a couple of years but most times alimon and judges don’t put on the table until 10 years if alimony has been granted to a person they could have permanent alimony or they could have conditions that in alimony and so permanent alimony would be just like it implies for the rest of your life however alimony that’s not permanent could be alimony that terminates after a person gets married or after 5 years Etc divorce can be a tough process alimony indoors can be even tougher if you need any help don’t hesitate to give us a call