CHOOSING YOUR DIVORCE PACKAGE

CONTENTS OF THE CALIFORNIA DIVORCE COURSE (LITE EDITION)
You are reading a chapter from The California Divorce Course, Lite Edition, a free on line guide to doing your own California divorce. To find out more about The California Divorce Course, click here.

CONTENTS OF THE CALIFORNIA DIVORCE COURSE (FULL EDITION)

One of the more disheartening things about doing your own divorce in California is the massive number of forms that the government has promulgated. Picking your way through all of them and trying to decide which ones apply to your case can be extremely confusing at best.

Because of this, we've divided the Divorce Course into three distinct types of divorce, so that you only deal with the forms that apply to your case. The first is the Summary Dissolution. This is an extremely easy divorce process but it is primarily designed for cases where the people have been married a very short period of time, there's very little property to divide, and there are no children of the marriage nor any expected. You qualify for a Summary Dissolution if you meet the following guidelines:

1 - both parties have to sign the petition;

2 - you can't have any children of the marriage and the woman cannot be pregnant;

3 - neither of you can own any real estate, not just in California but anywhere;

4 - you must have less than $5,000.00 in community debts, not counting car loans;

5 - you must have less than $33,000.00 in community assets, not counting cars;

6 - neither party can have more than $33,000.00 in total assets (in other words, all of your property, not just community property), not counting cars;

7 - you have to sign an agreement dividing all property and debts prior to filing the divorce;

8 - you have to have been married less than 5 years;

9 - one of you has to have lived in California for six months and in the county where you file for divorce for at least 90 days.

The second is the regular divorce with no children. If you have no children and none are expected, and you don't qualify for the Summary Dissolution, then use the section on the regular divorce with no children.

Finally, of course, there is the regular divorce with children. If you have children of the marriage, go to that section and you'll find all of the information that you need to file your divorce and set up your child support and visitation.