Nobody plans for this part. You're standing in the kitchen, the coffee's gone cold, and you're wondering what the actual first move is. Not the emotional stuff. The paperwork stuff.
So let's do that. This is the practical version, written for people in Hialeah, Miami, and the rest of Miami-Dade who need to know what happens next and in what order.
The short version is that Florida makes the mechanics fairly plain, and most of the confusion comes from people not knowing which fork in the road they're standing at. So here's the spine of it, the actual sequence, before we get into the background that decides which fork is yours.
Filing for Divorce in Florida, Step by Step
The divorce case starts with one spouse, the Petitioner, filing a Petition for Dissolution of Marriage in the circuit court for the county where the two of you last lived together as a married couple, or where your spouse lives now. For most people reading this, that's the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade. The second spouse is then served with the petition and becomes the Respondent. It's just a procedural title to identify who filed first and who didn't, it doesn't mean anyone did anything wrong.
- The Petitioner files the Petition with the Clerk and pays the filing fee, which is $409 in Miami-Dade. This Petition states what you are seeking, dissolution of marriage, plus any other applicable issues, such as time sharing and support. You can file it electronically through the Florida Courts E-Filing Portal, or walk it in downtown to the Lawson E. Thomas Courthouse Center at 175 NW 1st Avenue, where the family division sits. If that $409 is a real problem right now, ask the Clerk about an Application for Determination of Civil Indigent Status. People do get the fee waived or deferred, and it happens more often than you'd think.
- The Respondent has to be "served." Someone has to physically hand him or her a copy of the Petition, either a deputy from the Sheriff's office or a private process server. The Sheriff charges $40. Private servers usually cost a little more and tend to be quicker about it. Once the Respondent has been served, the clock starts: 20 days to file an Answer.
- Both parties fill out a Financial Affidavit, which is a detailed document listing income, expenses, assets, and debts. It must be completed within 45 days of being served. If you fail to fill it out or lie on it, there will be consequences. Judges do not like creative accounting.
- If you have minor children, both of you have to take a four-hour Parent Education and Family Stabilization Course from a DCF-approved provider, and file a proposed Parenting Plan. The Petitioner has 45 days from filing to finish the course, the Respondent has 45 days from being served. You can do it online in an afternoon. It isn't hard. But no judge is finalizing anything until it's done.
The Family Law Forms are all pre-printed and available at the Florida Courts website. Yes, some people file for divorce without hiring an attorney, using the standard forms. That's fine. It gets to be a worse idea the more moving parts you've got, and we'll come back to that.
The Six-Month Residency Requirement
Before any of this happens, one of you has to satisfy the residency requirement. At least one spouse must have resided in Florida for six months prior to filing, and the courts are not flexible about this. It isn't a technicality a judge can wave off, it's jurisdictional. If neither spouse meets the requirement, the petition gets dismissed, because the state has to have a connection to the parties before it can grant them a divorce. Usually, proof of residency is provided through a Florida driver's license or voter registration card, or by the testimony of someone who can attest to the six-month residence.
Grounds: Florida Is a No-Fault State
Florida is a no-fault state, so you do not have to show that your spouse was at fault in order to file for divorce. The only grounds that most people use is that the marriage is irretrievably broken. You do not need to list specific reasons or submit supporting documents. One of the spouses states that the marriage is irreparably broken, and that is enough for the court to move forward. There is one exception to the rule: you can file for divorce on the basis that a spouse has been mentally incapacitated for three years, but that is very uncommon.
Uncontested Divorce vs. Contested Divorce
You will have either an uncontested divorce or a contested divorce, and that will determine the length of the case, the cost, and the stress level involved. An uncontested divorce means you and your spouse are in complete agreement on all issues related to who gets what asset, how those assets get divided, what the parenting plan states, and whether child support and/or alimony will be paid. One of you still files the petition and the other files an answer or a waiver, but you attach a written Marital Settlement Agreement, and the judge signs off on what the two of you already worked out.
A contested divorce means you disagree with your spouse on any major issue, such as how to divide the assets, how spousal support should be determined, or how you should share time with the kids on Tuesday nights. A judge must resolve these disagreements, which involves additional documents and court appearances.
Florida also offers a simplified dissolution of marriage, which requires that you have no minor children and are not pregnant; neither party is seeking alimony; and you have agreed upon how to split the marital assets and liabilities. Both of you appear at the clerk's office in person, waive your right to appeal and to a trial, and sign. Note the "in person" part, because there's no e-filing shortcut for this one. It is easy and quick if you meet the qualifications, but many people don't, so make sure you know them before proceeding.
How Long Does This Take?
Faster than people expect, if you agree. Slower than anyone wants, if you don't.
Florida requires at least 20 days between the day the Petition is filed and the day a judge can sign the Final Judgment. That's the floor, and it's almost never the ceiling. A genuinely uncontested case in Miami-Dade usually wraps up in about four to eight weeks, assuming the paperwork is clean and you've both finished the parenting course. A simplified dissolution can move faster than that.
Contested is a different animal. Six months is optimistic. A year is normal. Two years happens when there's a business to value, a custody fight, or a spouse who won't hand over documents. And most of that time isn't the judge thinking, it's the calendar: mandatory disclosure, getting mediation scheduled, waiting on a hearing date in a busy circuit.
The one thing that shortens a contested case more than anything else is both people deciding, at some point, that they'd rather settle it than win it.
Can You File for Divorce Without an Attorney?
Yes, and many people do, especially in the simplified process when the marriage was relatively short, there are no children, and there aren't significant marital assets. However, if you have children, a business, a retirement account, or a dispute over alimony, it's no longer the paperwork that becomes difficult. It's the knowledge of what you're entitled to and what you're giving up. You could believe that you're receiving what you're entitled to based on what you fill out on your Financial Affidavit and still end up giving up something significant.
Attorneys at Law Joseph M. Corey, Jr. P.A. has handled both uncontested and contested divorces for over 40 years. One of the most common reasons individuals hire a family law attorney is because they don't want to look back two years down the road wishing they hadn't done that. If you would like to learn more about representing yourself vs. hiring an attorney, check out our information about
Miami divorce lawyers
.
How Are Alimony and Child Support Determined?
This is where disputes occur, and it is where we will focus our attention. In Florida, alimony is neither automatic nor standardized. The court considers one party's need and the other party's ability to pay. The length of the marriage is a consideration, but it's only one of many considerations, including the financial circumstances of the parties, the standard of living during the marriage, and the contributions made by each party.
Florida revised its alimony law several years ago, and the type, amount, and duration of alimony available to you depend on the facts of your case and the current Florida Statutes. This is why it's a question for consultation and not a question you should answer on your own. Get it wrong and you'll either pay too much or receive too little.
And whatever gets decided isn't necessarily forever. Circumstances change, and Florida law lets you go back and ask for a modification when there's been a substantial change. Plenty of people never realize that, and they spend years paying on an order that stopped matching their life a long time ago.
Child support works differently. It runs off a formula, using both parents' incomes and the number of overnights in the parenting plan, so there's less to argue about. Less, not none. The overnights move the number, sometimes by a lot, which is exactly why the time sharing schedule and the support figure get negotiated together instead of one after the other. The firm also provides legal assistance for child support and other related
family law
matters, including modification, which is very common as parenting plans and employment change over time.
How Much Does It Cost, and How Much Does It Cost to Do It Wrong?
The question everyone wants answered first. Let's start with the part that's fixed, because you can write these numbers down today.
The Clerk wants $409 to open the case. Service is $40 through the Sheriff, a bit more if you go private. The parenting course usually runs $25 to $50 a head online. Certified copies of the Final Judgment are a few dollars apiece, and you'll want two or three of them. So the court's own price for getting divorced in Miami-Dade sits somewhere around $500 before anybody has hired a lawyer.
Then there's the representation, and here the honest answer is that it costs less than doing it wrong. Cases here are typically charged at a flat rate, so you know from the outset exactly what you're spending instead of watching the number climb every time the clock ticks. What's included varies with the complexity of the case. An uncontested divorce, or a simplified dissolution, will cost less than a contested divorce involving real property and/or a business. It won't take long on the phone to figure out which one you're looking at, and we'll quote you a flat number before you commit to anything.
The most expensive divorce is the one you decided to handle alone in order to save money. Get the property division wrong, or misread the child support provision, and it costs you many multiples of the fee you would have paid to get it right the first time. Fixing things after the Final Judgment of Dissolution of Marriage has been signed and entered is slow, and it is not cheap.
On a divorce with $100,000 of marital assets in play, the difference between a good attorney and a bad one is peanuts next to the difference between getting a share of a piece of property and getting none of it at all. You won't know what the mistake cost until the bill for it shows up, and by then the Final Judgment has been signed. A signed judgment is hard to undo. It can be modified, appealed, or set aside under certain circumstances, but none of those are swift and none of them are inexpensive.
How Does the Divorce Get Finalized?
Once the parties reach agreement on terms, whether by direct negotiations, mediation, or decision by a judge, the Final Judgment is prepared and presented to the court for signature. Mediation is well worth exploring. A neutral third party facilitates an agreement and allows the parties to avoid trial. Many judges in Miami-Dade County require the parties to attempt mediation before they'll hear a contested divorce, and a lot of contested divorces do settle right there in the mediation session, which saves the cost and the scheduling headache of taking a case to court.
When the judge signs the Final Judgment of Dissolution of Marriage, you are divorced. That document contains the details regarding support, property division, and the parenting plan, and becomes enforceable upon its entry. Get a certified copy from the Clerk and keep it somewhere safe. Get two, honestly. You'll need it at the DMV, at the bank, at the Social Security office, and anywhere else you have to prove you're no longer married.
If you're in Hialeah, Miami, or anywhere in Miami-Dade County and you're staring into a cup of cold coffee trying to figure out where to begin, we're open seven days a week. Call us at (305) 557-1750.
This article is general information about Florida divorce procedure, not legal advice, and reading it doesn't make you our client. Every case turns on its own facts. Fees and court costs are current as of publication and can change.
