Tuesday, September 18, 2012

IS MY FIANCE' DIVORCED?

QUESTION: My Fiance' filed for a divorce from his wife while he was in jail. He mailed the papers to me and I mailed them to the sheriff's office in her county so they could serve her with them. If she wasn't home and didn't sign- is their marriage still legal? Or did the divorce go through because she did not contesr it?

MY RESPONSE: They aren't divorced, if those are all the facts. Merely filing and serving divorce papers doesn't automatically result in a divorce. There are other documents which need to be exchanged, and still other documents which need to be filed, before the Court will issue a Judgment dissolving the parties' marriage. It sounds like his wife wasn't even served with the divorce case, although the party who is served does not need to sign anything to be served. Your fiance' would best retain an experienced Family Law Attorney to represent him in proceedings to divorce his wife.

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