Victoria writes about people management, legal practice, technology, and the future of work. Her diverse career has included experience as a US employment lawyer and various roles in human resource management, including a strategic HR role at The Wal.
Victoria Pearce ContributorVictoria writes about people management, legal practice, technology, and the future of work. Her diverse career has included experience as a US employment lawyer and various roles in human resource management, including a strategic HR role at The Wal.
Written By Victoria Pearce ContributorVictoria writes about people management, legal practice, technology, and the future of work. Her diverse career has included experience as a US employment lawyer and various roles in human resource management, including a strategic HR role at The Wal.
Victoria Pearce ContributorVictoria writes about people management, legal practice, technology, and the future of work. Her diverse career has included experience as a US employment lawyer and various roles in human resource management, including a strategic HR role at The Wal.
ContributorAdam has resided at the intersection of legal and journalism for two decades. An award-winning journalist and legal strategist, he’s covered high-profile trials in Florida. After law school, Adam and spent two years clerking for a U.S. District Co.
Adam has resided at the intersection of legal and journalism for two decades. An award-winning journalist and legal strategist, he’s covered high-profile trials in Florida. After law school, Adam and spent two years clerking for a U.S. District Co.
Adam has resided at the intersection of legal and journalism for two decades. An award-winning journalist and legal strategist, he’s covered high-profile trials in Florida. After law school, Adam and spent two years clerking for a U.S. District Co.
Adam has resided at the intersection of legal and journalism for two decades. An award-winning journalist and legal strategist, he’s covered high-profile trials in Florida. After law school, Adam and spent two years clerking for a U.S. District Co.
Updated: Oct 3, 2023, 9:55am
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If all your exes live in Texas, you might have gone through Texas family law courts once or twice. Whether you’ve dealt with Texas divorce laws before or are dealing with them for the first time, it is essential to understand your rights.
In this guide, you’ll learn about Texas divorce laws, how to file for a divorce in Texas and what your rights are to support, property, custody and more.
A divorce can be processed in Texas regardless of the reasons behind the divorce, and whether or not both spouses agree on all of the issues. However, understanding the different types of divorce in Texas will help you determine how you can best work through the divorce proceedings.
Texas divorce does not require blame or fault for the divorce. No-fault divorce can be obtained when the marriage is insupportable, defined as when there is discord or conflict and no expectation of reconciliation. This is the easiest reason to seek a divorce and no proof is necessary.
It is also possible to seek a fault divorce by proving fault with one of the following grounds:
Divorce in Texas can be contested or uncontested. A contested divorce is one in which you and your spouse cannot agree on at least one issue in the divorce. Because you cannot reach a settlement, you must go to trial and let the judge decide how to resolve these issues.
An uncontested divorce occurs in one of two situations:
A divorce in Texas is begun by the filing of a petition. The spouse who files is called the petitioner. The other spouse, called the respondent, has the opportunity to answer and respond in the case. You can find Texas divorce forms on the state court website and the state law library site.
As in every state, there are certain criteria you have to meet before you can file for divorce. In order to file for a Texas divorce, one or both partners must have lived in Texas for at least six months and in the county where the divorce is filed for at least 90 days.
In many states, the partners are required to have lived separately for some period of time (often six or 12 months), but in Texas a couple could still live together even during the divorce proceedings.
Texas law does not require couples going through a divorce to work with an attorney. It is possible to handle the paperwork on your own or with assistance from an online divorce service. However, this path does not work for all divorcing couples.
You are most likely to be able to manage your own divorce filing if:
If you do not meet those criteria, you are more likely to encounter conflicts that are difficult to resolve on your own. Complicated and contested divorces often require an attorney’s knowledge of Texas Family Law to navigate.
Processing a divorce requires identifying the right legal forms, filling them out correctly, and then filing the completed forms with the right Texas court. The cheapest way to file for divorce in Texas is to locate the forms you need on Texas government websites. Keep in mind that you will still need to pay filing fees to file your divorce papers with a Texas court unless you qualify for an inability to pay waiver.
Divorce paperwork can also be completed online, and many choose to use an online divorce service to walk them through the process. An online divorce service will typically provide no-fault divorce forms, sometimes with assistance on how to complete the forms. They will then provide you with guidance on how to file your divorce paperwork.
The petitioner must have the divorce papers legally served on the respondent. There are several methods to accomplish this, depending on your circumstances:
Division of property refers to how you and your spouse will split up your assets. Most Texas divorces will follow the community property rule, but there are some exceptions.
In Texas, community property is the standard for division of property. Any asset that was obtained during the marriage is presumed to be community property, even if the asset was only in one spouse’s name. The community property rule means that marital property is divided evenly between the spouses.
An exception to the community property rule is made for separate property. To be considered separate property, the asset must meet one of the following criteria:
If the asset qualifies as separate property, it will not be subject to the equal division rules set for community property.
It is possible for an asset to qualify as separate property, but instead be labeled as community property due to how the asset was treated during the marriage. This change in status occurs when the property is commingled. For example, if you received an inheritance during the marriage but then deposited the inheritance into a joint bank account with your spouse, that inheritance has commingled. It is no longer considered separate property and will likely be divided in the divorce as community property.
Whether or not property has been commingled is usually determined by examining financial records and other ownership documents.
Child custody and support are important elements in many divorces.
In Texas, spousal support or alimony is called maintenance. The duration of maintenance is determined in part by the length of the marriage, with longer marriages being eligible for longer and sometimes permanent maintenance.
In order to get maintenance payments, one of these situations must be true:
Once one of these situations is established, the court then looks at a list of 11 factors to determine the amount and duration of maintenance:
Courts will usually not require support of more than $5,000 per month or 20% of the paying spouse’s average gross monthly income, whichever is less.
Texas has established minimum support guidelines based on the earnings of the supporting parent and the number of children. The system is administered by the attorney general’s office, which provides valuable information on the topic for anyone paying or receiving child support in Texas.
Texas family courts decide child custody based on what is in the best interest of the children and generally assume that the best interest of children is a strong parental relationship with both parents. The default in Texas is for both parents to be named joint managing conservators—this means they share decision-making responsibilities for the children.
As Hard As Divorce Might Be, An Online Divorce Service Can Make It Easy
Let a professional, reasonably priced online divorce service help you with all matters pertaining to your divorce.
AdvertisementThe answer to that is “maybe.” An uncontested divorce without any minor children and limited assets may be easy enough to do on your own, especially if you and your spouse are on good terms and agree on all the details. A contested divorce that will require mediation, several court dates and eventually a trial, on the other hand, is best served by hiring a good attorney.
In Texas, at least 60 days must pass between the initial filing for divorce and when the divorce is final. Usually, those 60 days aren’t enough time for the process to be completed, however, and most divorces take between six and 12 months in Texas. Obviously, the more complex and involved the issues—and the more contentious the relationship is between the partners—the longer the process can take.
If you file your own divorce, you won’t have attorney fees, but you can expect to pay $200 to $300 in filing fees. If you hire a document preparation service, that will be an additional cost. You may also have to pay to have the forms legally served on your spouse. The average cost of a divorce in Texas is $15,600, with lawyers charging between $260 and $320 per hour.
No, divorce petitions do not expire in Texas. However, a judge can dismiss the petition for want of prosecution if no action is taken following the petition. If that occurs, then a new petition would be required to start new divorce proceedings.
Yes, divorce records in Texas are public. They are maintained by the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Texas allows both fault and no fault divorces. A no fault divorce can be filed at any time a marriage is not supportable. A fault divorce requires proof of specific actions, such as adultery or abandonment.
Filing first for divorce in Texas does not bring an advantage in terms of dividing property or determining the final outcome for the divorce. Being the first to file does give an opportunity to choose which county will handle the divorce if you and your spouse have lived in separate counties for over 90 days. However, the filing party will also have to pay the filing fees to initiate the divorce process.
You can file for divorce in Texas while you are pregnant, but Texas laws prevent courts from finalizing the divorce until after the baby is born. Issues that rely on paternity, such as child custody and child support will not be addressed until after childbirth.
In Texas, you must wait 30 days from the date your divorce is finalized before you can remarry. This is because an appeal to the divorce decree can be filed up to 30 days after it is issued. It is possible to ask a judge to waive the waiting period for good cause, such as to allow the marriage before an upcoming military deployment.
Adultery can be grounds for a fault-based divorce in Texas. If adultery is the proven reason for divorce, this can have an impact on how assets from the marriage are divided. For example, the judge could order the cheating spouse to take a smaller percentage due to wasting community assets in pursuit of the affair.
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ContributorVictoria writes about people management, legal practice, technology, and the future of work. Her diverse career has included experience as a US employment lawyer and various roles in human resource management, including a strategic HR role at The Walt Disney Company. Now living in the UK, Victoria provides unique insights on the world of work in the US, UK, and EU.
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