# anyone filed an uncontested divorce without attorney?



## clb0208 (Aug 15, 2011)

So, my STBX and I have been separated for about 4 months. We have already divided up our assets and taken responsibility of allocated debt. We have two minor children and are agreeable on the shared custody plan. He has been paying support, and I am agreeable to the current amount. Really, we just want to put this arrangement on paper and finalize everything. We don't own many financial assets (rent our house, no huge savings account or investments). I am thinking that if we have an agreement already, it makes sense to do this thing ourselves. The lawyers I spoke with expect a retainer of $3K just to do the paperwork. I have found a few mediators that may do it for a little less, but it is still over $2K. Does anyone have experience filing on their own? I have seen a lot of online filing services that don't even require you to go to the courthouse. Some online services, like Legalzoom will prepare the paperwork and give you instructions for filing. That service advertises $950 plus filing fees. If anyone has any experience with this approach I would love to hear your feedback. Thank you!


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

* Legalzoom has a pretty solid reputation! I'd highly advise you to talk with them, provided that your STBX is agreeable to handle it that way!*


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

I wouldn't recommend it being that you have children and assets.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

I did my own uncontested divorce. My state as a self help court site with all the forms. I just downloaded them, converted them to MS Word and filled them out and printed them. it cost me $135 to file the papers. The divorce was final in a week. The caveat here though is that the children were all grown when I did this.

I could have done the paperwork for child custody and child support because I have samples of ones from pervious divorces. 

Here is a link to the Florida State Court Systems' self help website.

Family Law Forms

There are also books sold (try amazon.com) that are self help books for divorce in each state.


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## Thor (Oct 31, 2011)

I would use the Florida state forms provided by the state courts or the state website. I would not use a 3rd party like LegalZoom.

We did an uncontested divorce without using lawyers. Well, I consulted with an atty to find out what my legal position was, and I used a lawyer for the transfer of the home. But we didn't use any lawyers to prepare the legal filings for the divorce itself.

Since you have children, be sure the custody and child support meet the requirements of your state laws. You can't agree to something illegal. And, you want to be sure the bases are covered for changes in future financial or work situations. If you want to move for a better job, or if one of you starts earning a lot more or a lot less, then you need the agreement to allow for changes to custody and/or child support.

The division of assets shouldn't be any problem since you don't own a home or have large retirement accounts. Just be sure you are getting what you are entitled to. Sometimes it is easy to give away the farm in the haste of getting the divorce done or in feeling unnecessarily generous.

Be sure to structure the divorce so that everything is clean and finished when it is signed off. No more joint accounts. Whoever gets the car also gets the loan for that car. You should both have your own individual bank and credit card accounts by now.

My real concern for you are the issues surrounding the children. You need to really understand well how things work in Florida. Are custody or child support agreements changeable later on? How do you make sure they can be (do you have to include any particular words/phrases)? Do you have protections in there that you want, such as requiring written permission to take the kids out of state or out of the country? Who pays for medical insurance, sports activities, school supplies, etc?


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## clb0208 (Aug 15, 2011)

We have followed a shared custody arrangement of him having the kids sun evening -wed morning, and me the rest of the week for the last. He has agreed to giving me support which is probably more than what the child support guidelines would recommend. Is there really a custody arrangement that could be illegal if both parties agree to it? I have downloaded the form and it is pretty self explanatory, allowing for places to write specific exceptions and such. I mean, it is kind of impossible to foresee everything that could potentially happen in the future. The forms to specifiy that the terms of the parenting plan can be changed if both parties agree, or if a petition with the court is filed. I obviously don't want to screw anything up, or have it where it gets thrown out because we missed something on the form, but I'm really looking to just put our current agreement on paper.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

clb0208 said:


> We have followed a shared custody arrangement of him having the kids sun evening -wed morning, and me the rest of the week for the last. He has agreed to giving me support which is probably more than what the child support guidelines would recommend. Is there really a custody arrangement that could be illegal if both parties agree to it? I have downloaded the form and it is pretty self explanatory, allowing for places to write specific exceptions and such. I mean, it is kind of impossible to foresee everything that could potentially happen in the future. The forms to specifiy that the terms of the parenting plan can be changed if both parties agree, or if a petition with the court is filed. I obviously don't want to screw anything up, or have it where it gets thrown out because we missed something on the form, but I'm really looking to just put our current agreement on paper.


Yes, there are some agreements that are, if not illegal, not acceptable to the court/judge.

For example if there should be child support going to one parent, but the divorce does not include the child support. Why is this? Because the child support actually belongs to the child(ren), not the parents. If one parent would need to money to give the children a life as close to their before-divorce lifestyle, then the judge is going to order child support.

Do you have any idea what child support normally is in your state? Do you know if what he has offered is in line with the state guidelines. There is probably a child support calculator for your state somewhere online.

One thing you can do with child support is to write out the basics. The anything over that, such as unexpected medical bill, are split according to your percentage of joint income. For example. If one of you earns $60K a year and the other $40, the one who earns $60K pays 60% of medical bills. Things like extra child care, summer camps, music lessons/instruments, etc can be handled this way.


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## clb0208 (Aug 15, 2011)

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I have looked up the Florida Child Support Guidelines and used the calculator. I also spoke with an attorney who printed out a few possibilities of what our child support would look like depending on the number of overnights he has. We are pretty close to the guidelines, he might be paying me a little more. Everything else we have agreed to split 50/50.


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## BeenHereB4 (Jul 21, 2014)

clb0208 said:


> So, my STBX and I have been separated for about 4 months. We have already divided up our assets and taken responsibility of allocated debt. We have two minor children and are agreeable on the shared custody plan. He has been paying support, and I am agreeable to the current amount. Really, we just want to put this arrangement on paper and finalize everything. We don't own many financial assets (rent our house, no huge savings account or investments). I am thinking that if we have an agreement already, it makes sense to do this thing ourselves. The lawyers I spoke with expect a retainer of $3K just to do the paperwork. I have found a few mediators that may do it for a little less, but it is still over $2K. Does anyone have experience filing on their own? I have seen a lot of online filing services that don't even require you to go to the courthouse. Some online services, like Legalzoom will prepare the paperwork and give you instructions for filing. That service advertises $950 plus filing fees. If anyone has any experience with this approach I would love to hear your feedback. Thank you!


My STBXW used DivorceWriter! She/(more like me) will have to pay the filing fees though - but I think Utah might be a bit simpler than some states.


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