How much did your divorce cost?

[usedtobebear]

Just curious, I'm naive and was hoping my $2000 retainer fee would cover my divorce lawyer fees but after hearing about MCC $15k divorce and PDX breaking my heart saying I should count on spending my equity for legal fees. Now, I'm lol that I even thought I could get whatever back that I didn't use of the $2k... yikes!

[dakotadangerdog]

Less than 500 dollars. No kids or real estate involved.

[blackkitty]

I think it depends A LOT on what state you live in. Up north divorces can be pretty pricey. In NY we paid around $5k for a mediator. We got off super cheap!

ETA - And we agreed on absolutely everything. Neither one of us fought the other about anything and we were super agreeable (even cracking jokes during the mediation - I'll never forget one standard line in the agreement said we "couldn't molest each other" after the divorce. Which basically meant harass but the way it was worded was pretty funny)

[BookLover]

$2,500 for retainer then an additional $1,500 for added court fees.

[doriswe]

Me - nothing. My XH filed and it was less than $300 (we did all of our own paperwork and agreed to everything) with a house, cars, joint accounts and a kid.

[Deleted]

Sorry! I didn't mean to say that you'd spend all of your equity on it. I just meant when equity is involved things can get sticky.

I spend around 3k and that was with a lot of fighting and switching lawyers.

[explorer2001]

$300 or 400 in court fees. No lawyer, no kids, no disputable property (as in the house and cars were each in one name or the other only and nothing significant was bought in the time we were married). However since it is a community property state and all creditors could go after each of us fully for any debts incurred during the marriage, I took all $40,000 of debt he ran up but couldn't pay because he couldn't keep a job.

Honestly worth every penny in my mind because it cut the crap and got it over and done faster with my good credit intact. Had I not done that I'd still be fighting in court to get him to pay his bills, my credit would be trashed, and I'd still be dealing with.him. Like I said it was worth it to me.

[imalwaysme79]

Mine cost under $500. No kids, no real estate. We got a divorce kit, each filled out our portion of the paperwork, brought it to court to be filed. Done.

[heavenly]

About 500ish each (Ex h cost to file for the divorce and my cost was to respond to his paperwork)

We were lucky to sell our home prior to him filing for the divorce. We have one child together but ex h made it super easy and did everything I wanted since he felt quilty about being the one to leave.

[mandimija]

$2500. No kids and we agreed on everything but his CC bills and how the house would be sold. Oh, and him not contacting me.

My lawyer kicked some serious ass. If I hadn't been paying her so much to begin with, I probably would have bought her a thank-you gift of some sort.

[compassrose]

I think we split about $1800 for the mediator who met with us and then wrote up our PSA. And then another $250 for the online divorce paperwork site. And a nominal fee to file ($10 maybe?)

[mclovin]

Well, I just got started. So far $2500 retainer for the divorce, $1500 for the order of protection, and $300 filing fee. And I expect this to be ugly.

[roselis]

$1960 in lawyer fees, about $250 in filing fees. We have 1 kid and a house. We also came to an agreement on everything without mediation. My lawyer was just to make sure everything was legal and to draw up the documents

[bowies]

$5K I think. We agreed on most everything in the separation agreement, but since he was up to some shady financial shit, I wanted the protection of a lawyer. We didn't have kids, but we did have joint property. He didn't fight the terms of the divorce, but he did fight me on expediting it. He just wanted to punish me by making it as expensive as possible. He never hired a lawyer.

[prettyinpearls]

The divorce itself was $5500...we only went back and forth a few times and it was a pretty simple divorce. I just recently went back to court because my DB XH filed for full custody of DS because he was pissed I was moving in with my FI. That cost me a whopping $4k.

[mysterons]

$1800 which included the lawyer's fees and court costs. No kids, but we did have property and savings to divide up.

[Deleted]

$1000. No property, no kids. NYC

[Deleted]

I want to say $6K more or less.
We had a house, no kids. exH had an asshole lawyer who made things pretty difficult. For example, my lawyer wanted to settle things doing a mediation (pretty standard in my State). I spent $900 for this thing and exH's attorney refused to even sit at our table (exH was OK with that) and he kept fighting every little thing. That same night I called exH to ask him WTF happened and he agreed it was stupid and we met during the weekend and settled. But surprise! When it was time to settle in front of the judge, exH changed his mind because his lawyer told him I should get $0. It took exH 6 months to realize his lawyer was accruing legal fees for everyone and we finally settled on what we both wanted from day 1.

[blondnearby]

I filed August 6, 2007 and $20,000 later in the state of California with two children, I was officially divorced August 2, 2011.

[letyourselfgo]

$50....most of that was copying fees, I had a fee waiver, so other than that....it cost me nada. I'm in Nevada. Ex-H had a lawyer and gave him a $2000 retainer or something.

Custody case modification....which came later: I had to give the attorney I hired a $2000 retainer, of which over the course of a year, has been winnowed down to around $1300. So, $700 for that case.

My attorney participated in a program where low income persons could be assigned an attorney, so I was paying her $75 an hour, rather than her usual $375 an hour. Thank G-d for that.

[whattheheck]

So far: $16,100; two years; three kids; one house; 5 acres vacant property; still not divorced.

[bostonterrier]

Jul 10, 2012 16:54:01 GMT -5 @darkangel said:

Mine was about $1500. It was a relatively easy divorce, nothing joint no kids, but he dicked around with not signing the papers or sending only some of the papers back and my lawyer had to keep hounding his lawyer to get all the papers signed. Plus I had to pay some of his appearance and filing fees, but it was so totally worth it to be free of him!

Same amount and experience for me, including the hounding to sign papers, minus paying appearance/filing fees.

Best damned $1500 I'll ever spend in my life!!!!!

[margaritagirl]

I'd say about $4500. We tried to do it on our own - with a mediator, but XH got pretty crazy regarding DD, so I hired a good lawyer. Worth the money, for sure. Less headache, he protected my assests, and advocated for my daughter. We only met once in person, ironed it out, and called it good. Neither one of us really wanted to drag it out b/c we aren't rich

[iheartrice]

Around $1500 - no kids, no real estate

[marigoldgirl]

Around $260.00 for filling fees. We did it ourselves with one 17 year old kid, one house, and cars. Washington State. It was actually easier than I thought it would be.

[SunFlwr324]

$25,000 in court fees and legal bills. 2.5 year marriage with no kids, house was mine prior to the marriage, he spent all our savings - should have been quick, easy and clean but it was none of those things ... File in May of 2011 and I hope to be finalized in 2 weeks ...

[dakotadangerdog]

Jul 11, 2012 8:56:53 GMT -5 marigoldgirl said:

Around $260.00 for filling fees. We did it ourselves with one 17 year old kid, one house, and cars. Washington State. It was actually easier than I thought it would be.

One of the many reasons I love Washington

[kasi]

Oops ended up on the wrong board but this pertains to me as well so I'll answer. My divorce cost me somewhere in the $450 range for both child custody and divorce filing fee. I did all the paperwork myself and didn't seek legal advice. It was a pretty simple divorce since we didn't have any property and he didn't fight for custody.

It did cost me a huge hit on my credit because the vehicle he agreed to keep was repossessed and I was on the loan. Also, a bank account that I stupidly left my name on ended up being overdrawn by him so that hit my credit as well. It's been at least 8 years since all that so it's off my credit report finally.

[chichimi]

$250 in court fees that he paid. He filed but we did all of the paperwork and split everything up on our own. No children or real estate.

[aliciar6]

maybe $400 for the filing and paperwork. We had a house, no kids, some joint vehicles, but I did all the paperwork myself and we agreed on everything and wanted it done ASAP

granted i had to pay him 10K to just get rid of him as a special lump sum payment in our seperation agreement.