Has anyone ever done a do it yourself divorce?

Question

Please if you could give me your experience tell me the good and bad in doing one yourself.

Answer 1

I got a form online and filled it out.  But call your clerk of court in your county, and tell them you want to do it yourself. See what they say about forms.   Some ONLINE FORMS are OLD...and you need current ones.

  Its easy for the judge, as they do so many of them in an hour. All he does is make sure the paperwork is in order, and its over with.

The main thing is just keeping friendly and divide you property fairly. Thats the biggest part of the whole process.

Think of it as a lawyer making $500 just to walk in the door, and then ( I forget) how much per hour. ..but its lots.  

I said, Im not going to spend all this money. We can decide it ourselves. ( you do anyway-unless you refuse to speak to each other.)

We made a couple of minor errors, but the judge is used to people doing them now, and he just tells you what to correct, and then come back.    

It cost something to file..

I think we spent about $60 compared to prob a couple thousand.  

I came away financially happy.  

So did my ex.  

Its a bit trickier if children are involved.

IMPORTANT   LOOK OUT FOR YOURSELF..  by the next day the other person wont care .

  Hit every single detail and item. Put who that item is to go with.  Once you agree its set in concrete.

Answer 2

my mom did her second time around she said it was very easy and that she wishes she would have done it like that the first time. and as long as both parties agree with everything and there are no kids involved than i see not reason why you wouldn't do it that way  

Answer 3

Yep, that is how I did my first divorce.  The good is that it was cheep and simple.  The bad is that you tend to assume the best out of your soon to be ex and so some things that you just assume are ok between the two of you, you don't tend to put into the divorce agreement.  In my case I let her keep a credit card with my name on it with the assumption she would keep it paid off and only use it till she got her credit established.  That little mistake cost me 10k a couple of years later. :(

Answer 4

If it's an uncontested divorce it's easy. Just go to legalzoom.com and complete the paperwork.

Answer 5

I did.

I don't see the bad in doing it yourself UNLESS you have a bunch of assets that are not being agreed upon by both sides.  And even then, if neither side has a lawyer, they'll just order you to mediation to work it out.  If not worked out, the judge will make the final decision.

The good is that some blood-sucking lawyer didn't put me even further in the financial hole.

Just keep in mind that just because you are awarded something (debt, custody, assets, liabilities, etc) it doesn't mean that you're necessarily going to get them.  Enforcing the order means more paperwork, court appearances, money, etc.

All lawyers are good for (I'm sure I'll get some thumbs-down for this one) are talking the legal mumbo-jumbo to expedite the judges ruling.

You are more than capable of filing and proceeding by yourself.  There will be a lot of paperwork, but all pretty self-explanatory - and those that aren't can be explained by someone at the courthouse (although they'll point out they don't give legal advice).