Expedited: How to Get Your Divorce Over With Quickly

No sane person wants to spend years or even months muddling through an extended divorce — but not many people are terribly clear on what can be done to speed things up. Here’s the best advice Gucciardo Family Law has for people who want an expedited divorce in a state that doesn’t have those laws.

Investigative Cynicism
The single biggest slowdown to divorce proceedings are the surprises that blindside you and your attorney and can cause the entire property division or child custody processes to start over from near-zero. No matter how well you think you know your spouse, you should be prepared to invest a few days of time and effort to look for any signs of:

• Children that are not yours,
• Businesses you have no shares in,
• Tax or other debt (from before or during the marriage),
• Bank, investment, or electronic (i.e. PayPal) accounts with meaningful assets in them,
• Or other significant assets or liabilities that you are unaware of.

Furthermore, you should also take notes on the actual purchase price and current value of all major assets and liabilities you are aware of, including all real property, vehicles, precious jewelry, investments, and retirement accounts. The more of these numbers you can bring with you, the faster the discovery process — usually the slowest part of every divorce — can be completed.

Stop! Collaborate on Friction
While discovery must always be performed as though your spouse is a sneaky cheater — because doing it any other way is foolish — every other part of the divorce process can benefit immensely from a collaborative attitude. Give your spouse the opportunity to sort your issues out by working with you (and a mediator or arbitrator if necessary) — every issue that you can come to an agreement on without forcing the court to get involved is an issue that isn’t wasting a whole bunch of time. And the issues that cause the most friction are the ones that will save the most time if addressed in this manner.

No Contest
If you and your spouse can agree to all of the key terms of the divorce agreement, including:

• Division of assets and debts,
• Spousal support arrangements,
• Tax and benefit-account issues,
• Child custody and visitation,
• Child support arrangements, and
• Any special matters pertaining to your divorce,

Without violating the court’s legal obligation to look out for the best interests of the children and to divide property equitably in a way that “does not shock the conscience of the court”, your divorce will generally proceed as quickly as legally possible. Divorces where both spice (sorry, spouses) agree on all issues involved are called “uncontested,” and are the hallmark of quick divorces.

Expedited Divorce? Not in Michigan
Many states have laws regarding an ‘expedited divorce;’ Michigan is not among them. No matter how efficient you can make the rest of the process, there will always be a two-month waiting period if there are no children of your marriage — and a six-month waiting period if there are. Assuming everything else is uncontested, however, the divorce process can happen within a few days of the waiting period (which begins when the paper work is first filed). You can totally spend the waiting period working with your spouse to build an uncontested agreement to bring to the judge the day after the waiting period ends, though. That’s about as expedited as Michigan will allow.

If you’re looking for a family attorney to help you get through your divorce as efficiently as possible, give Gucciardo Family Law a call — we can help!