Amicable divorce with no lawyer?

[Deleted]

My STBXH and I are splitting very amicably and have already agreed on damn near everything. We have agreed on splitting up the cars, splitting any house profit (or loss) 50/50 when we sell, have no kids, and almost equal income. Does anyone have experience divorcing without getting lawyers involved? I've done some research online, I'm just skeptical because it seems too quick and easy... Any advice is appreciated!

[Deleted]

Kind of. We did end up hiring one to handle the paperwork bc neither of us wanted to deal with all that.

We were in a very similar situation to yours.

He was the primary breadwinner but I had no interest in the huge house or alimony (alimony is taxable income). I took a settlement so I was able to walk away with 20% down on a new place and I am living very comfortably on my own.

I think it's completely do-able; it just depends on your ability to support yourself and your motivations I suppose.

[doriswe]

My XH and I did it without any legal assistance. We had a kid, house and some debt. Our state has all the documents online so we filled them out together and submitted to the clerk of courts. Filing fee was $300, I believe.

[Deleted]

We did a fill in the blank kind of form for filing. We did (he did) pay a law office to file on our behalf. 500 bucks and that's it.

[alleinesein]

Sorta. I filed the initial paperwork and then had a friend who is a divorce lawyer do the settlement agreement and all the other paperwork that we needed to file. She specializes in mediation and told XH he could hire an attorney if he wanted to throw money away since she had no issues dragging him to court over every little thing. He decided that it was in his best interest to sing the paperwork and be done with everything.

I think that @buckybells did hers without any attorneys.

[Deleted]

Jun 20, 2016 19:15:08 GMT -5 alleinesein said:

Sorta. I filed the initial paperwork and then had a friend who is a divorce lawyer do the settlement agreement and all the other paperwork that we needed to file. She specializes in mediation and told XH he could hire an attorney if he wanted to throw money away since she had no issues dragging him to court over every little thing. He decided that it was in his best interest to sing the paperwork and be done with everything.

I think that @buckybells did hers without any attorneys.

Yep. I did all the research myself and basically printed off the paperwork from our state's website. I can't recall offhand now how much we paid, but I think it was less than $200 total - maybe like $75 to file and $50 to finalize? It was honestly really easy, though for a while I had some anxiety that I was missing something and it was going to blow up in my face that we did it that way. But it's coming up on 3 years since finalization, and I've had no issues (other than a surprise IRS issue that I had no idea was coming at the time of the divorce, so I'm not sure a lawyer would have helped with that part anyway).

I would not recommend this route if there were kids involved or lots of complicated assets, debt, etc. Our debt/assets were pretty straightforward and we were able to get rid of all joint debt before we finalized so it was fine. Had we had to carry actual debt past the divorce I think I would have used a lawyer. 

[jojoandleo]

A lot of states have uncontested divorce paperwork online. You may also consider calling legal aid. Even if you don't qualify for their help, the office may have forms they can send you. You can also try calling the court clerk. There is usually a court clerk who handles uncontested pro-se divorces who can tell you if you have to go to court to finalize and when that date is, etc.

Here, all the paperwork is online. It is super simple. There is one day a week they do uncontested pro-se divorces. You have to go to the clerk, have them pull your file for the judge at least 15 minutes before that time, then go to court.

You may also look around for a lawyer who will charge a flat fee just to do the paperwork so you can guarantee it is all correct.

[housewife]

We agreed on everything and typed up our own separation agreement just for us. In January (1 year separation here) we will pay someone to fill out and file the paperwork and split the cost - $500. They don't handle the quitclaim deed, so xh will have to find someone to do that.

[elfinia7]

We didn't use lawyers but because we weren't confident in doing the paperwork ourselves, we used a mediator who met with us, got all our information, drafted the agreement for us, notarized it all and then we went to court ourselves to file. We did the walk in process where you file and see the judge that same day. I don't know if you can do this in all states, but you can in ours. The actual divorce filing was like $220. For the mediator it was a per hour rate and I believe we spent $2500 total for all three meetings with her. If we had done more of the work up front in terms of dividing things we would have saved some time and money with her.

[formerlyak]

We didn't use lawyers. We sat down, wrote out what we wanted, took it to a paralegal who does the paperwork for uncontested divorces (we could have done the paperwork on our own, but this made me feel better), she wrote it up, we signed, she filed. Done. Less than $1000 including paralegal fees and court fees. We had no house, did not have even salaries, and have a child.

[Deleted]

It's definitely possible.

We planned to do it without a lawyer but due to pretty much laziness I hired a lawyer to do the paperwork. At that point though we had been separated and living separately for almost 2 years so we had hashed out all details without the lawyer. It was the best $800 I ever spent though to not have to worry about anything but it's definitely possible to do it yourself. Good luck.

[pandora]

X and I did it all on our own. He printed out the forms from online, took at stab, I received them, looked online printed out ones he missed and went to the Clerk's office to ask them if we had it all. The added in a few more forms, I filled them out, he did his side and we submitted. Went to court and it was done and just had the waiting period. I think we just had to pay a small filing fee which we split.

We had no mutually owned property, no children or accounts at that point as we had already amicably split everything. The only thing we had to have a negotiating discussion over were the spices in the spice cabinet, LOL.

[momof2ms]

Not sure what the non-lawyer route looks like too much but since you didn't mention it, you might have to remove eachother as beneficiaries from your retirement plans if you added eachother at one point. Depending on how the selling journey goes, since you have equal income, it might be dicey if an inspector finds stuff to fix, if you guys don't agree on who should fix it, etc. Another thing that popped into my head was savings and debt and whose names are on those accounts. Atleast get all those hashed out and in writing?