True Default Case

Assume you want to process your divorce as an uncontested divorce, but your spouse refuses to cooperate.  He or she won’t negotiate with you.  Perhaps your spouse does not want the divorce and hopes that if he or she stalls, you will eventually reconcile.  Perhaps your spouse is angry that you want a divorce and seeks to punish you by refusing to cooperate in any way.  What do you do?  You can take your spouse’s default and have the court issue a “true default” divorce judgment.

In order to process a true default case, you need to follow most of the same procedures and fill out most of the same court forms described and explained in earlier sections of this website.  Much of the information about court forms and court procedures set forth in the earlier sections of the website also apply to “true default” cases.  For example, for a “true default” case, you will need to file with the court the forms discussed in the “Initial Filings” section of this website and serve those forms on your spouse.  In addition, you will need to fill out the forms described in the “Declaration of Disclosure” section of this website.  Also, you will need to read about the various topics in the “Getting Educated” section of the website.  Finally, you will need to read the “Judgment” section of the website that explains about how to prepare a divorce judgment and all of the additional court forms that go along with that judgment.  If you have a “true default” case, you can’t just start here.  You have to read the other sections of the website because those other sections contain key information about court forms and procedures that you must understand before you attempt to process a “true default” case.  You can read the information in this “True Default Case” section of the website to first get the “big picture” of how to process a true default case, but you will have to read various other sections of the website to understand the full process.

For a true default case, you will need a few additional court forms and you will need to a few more procedural details that are not discussed in other sections of this website that deal with cases where the parties were able to work together and reach a settlement agreement.  The information in this “true default” section of the website discusses only the additional court forms and procedural information you will need to process a true default case.  Explanations regarding all of the other court forms, except for the forms unique to true default cases, are set forth in previous sections on how to process divorces where the parties were able to settle all issues with agreements.  Explanations regarding those forms will not be repeated here.  If you don’t understand how to fill out those other forms, review the information set forth in the previous sections of this website.

 

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