Colorado Divorce Laws

One of the most difficult questions to answer for anybody is how much does a divorce cost, and then how long does it take? In the State of Colorado, there’s tons of different factors that go into a divorce. And a lot of the issue with cost is where are we going to settle and where are we going to fight? What we can never control is the fight that the other side is going to bring up. And we also can’t force the other side to settle. And if they’re not going to settle, and we have to introduce other factors into the divorce, that necessarily drives the cost up.

From that standpoint, it’s very difficult to tell somebody what their divorce will cost. As far as how long it takes, in the State of Colorado, earliest that somebody can be divorced or that two parties can be divorced is the 91st day after the respondent is served with the paperwork. Or the 91st day after both parties file together. The issue though is that courts are constantly backed up with litigants going into court and fighting about custody and things like that. Depending on the jurisdiction you’re in, your divorce could take a year and a half. It could take eight months. Count on the case taking longer than the 91st day when there are genuine fights about anything within your case.

By: Scott Goldman

Mediation can often save the client money. The mediator has their hourly fee, of course the attorneys do as well. But mediation can last (4) hours, it can last (2) hours, it can last the whole day. And the nice thing about mediation is that you’re not spending time preparing witnesses, preparing trial exhibits, preparing for a trial.

Really where the bulk of the costs come in are preparing for trial. To the extent that you can settle things out in mediation. And understanding that there’s still preparation for mediation. You will save yourselves a lot of money by going through that process and coming out of it successfully.

By: Scott Goldman

What is alimony based on in Colorado? Alimony, we actually don’t use that word here in Colorado. It’s the same thing, but we use the word maintenance. The reason we use the word maintenance is because it’s need-based here in Colorado. It’s not as if you just should have maintenance/alimony because someone’s at fault or someone’s been bad and they need to be punished.

Here in Colorado, regardless of how bad the other party is, you’re not going to be able to get alimony or maintenance unless you fulfill on what we now have as a formula or such. So here in Colorado, we have a formula. It went into effect at the beginning of 2014. It is a new formula. It doesn’t go into effect unless you’ve had at least three years of marriage.  If you are under three years of marriage, then the formula doesn’t apply. You might be able to get short term, temporary maintenance/alimony to tide you over until you get a job. But the formula itself won’t come into effect unless you’ve married a relatively significant period of time – three years. Once you hit that three year mark, the formula comes into effect and, whereas historically, we used to argue about maintenance all the time, now there’s less argument about it because judges like formulas.

Formulas make things easier. The maintenance formula itself has some complexities to it that are beyond this video, however suffice it to say, a thumbnail if you wanted to use it would be that the spouse that needed maintenance would probably get 40% of the other spouse’s salary minus – I don’t know if you can stick with it – minus 50% of the salary that the spouse who has less income already makes, and then the only question at that point is the period of time that you’d get the maintenance. It’s between a third of your marriage to half of your marriage, depending on how long you’ve been married. So the longer you’ve been married, the closer you’re going to get to the halfway point for the number of years that you would get maintenance.

For instance, if you’ve been married for (20) years, you’ll probably get maintenance for (10) years. And if you are a stay at home mother, let’s say, and you haven’t worked in years and years and years and you’re in your 50s, chances are you’ll get 40% of your spouses salary for that ten years. Now you can’t– I’m not promising that’s exactly right because like I said, there are many complexities to the statute and you’d have to come in a really sit down with me and really look for me to come up with what that maintenance formula will look like. So don’t take it as gospel. I’m just saying, that’s kind of a thumbnail sketch of how we do maintenance currently here in Colorado.

By: Leslie Matthews

When you get divorced, you have a number of pieces of paper that need to be sent in to the court. A divorce decree is all of that final paperwork put together that’s made an order of the court. So, that final paperwork would include your parenting plan, it would include your separation agreement, it would include any other orders of the court, and that package, all put together, is your divorce decree.

Now what you can do once you have your divorce decree is you can enforce it, so it becomes as I said an order of the court, meaning that if somebody doesn’t do what they’re supposed to do based on that paperwork, you can go to the court with a contempt motion or an order to enforce and it actually is a court order. So when you’re at the end of the divorce you have a divorce decree, you have your legal rights essentially handled.

By: Leslie Matthews

What is divorce in Colorado? Well Colorado divorce is a process. It’s a series of steps that will help folks and their marriage. In fact, we don’t even call divorce, divorce in Colorado. We call it a dissolution of marriage. In a dissolution of marriage, what the court will do is go through five basic areas and help people get divorced.

Although at times it may not seem like it’s helpful, it’s really getting the job done for you if all the steps are followed and followed correctly. First step is to do an initial status conference, at least in El Paso County. Some of the other counties may do things slightly differently. But it’s an initial meeting with the court where deadlines are set and times are set for exchange of information and determination whether or not it’s going to need any experts in the case.

The next step would be a settlement conference. Generally, that’s if both parties have an attorney, it’s the attorneys and the parties. If only one party has an attorney, obviously there could be three of you attempting to settle, or just the two of you if you don’t have attorneys. At a settlement conference, if you can reach agreement on all issues then you can write it up, submit it to the court, and often only have to go to court maybe one more time. If you’re not successful at a settlement conference, we often have what’s called a temporary orders hearing.

At a temporary orders hearing, each side presents its case for how assets should be divided, how parenting times should be arranged if there’s kids involved, and who’s going to be paying for what debts and perhaps who’s going to be living in the marital home if there is one. That is all for temporary purposes. That lasts from the time of the temporary orders hearing up until you have a final orders hearing.

Before you can have a final orders hearing, you’d be required in most instances to have mediation. Mediation is with a paid mediator who assists the couples in trying to reach agreements. If you can reach agreement on everything or on some things, again, you write them up, submit them to the court, and those issues are resolved.

Any remaining issues, which could be all of them, go to court for a final orders hearing. That’s a fully contested hearing often where both sides take very adverse positions and eventually the judge decides all the issues. In a nutshell, that’s divorce in Colorado.

By: Ray Chamberland

One question I commonly get is from the people who’ve just been served with divorce papers. And the question typically is, I’ve just been served with divorce papers, should I sign the documents that my spouse’s attorney sent me? And the short answer is, no, don’t do it.

Talk to an attorney first. If your spouse already has an attorney it doesn’t matter how amicable things seem like they’re going to be, you’re better off seeking your own counsel. You’re not going to know all of the details of the divorce, and you may not be familiar with what rights you may be signing away. So in order to protect your rights, my advice is, Call an attorney. If you want to call me we can discuss the situation, I can listen to what the other attorney is proposing and if it’s fair and equitable I may be able to suggest to you, Sure, go ahead and sign it.

By: Ray Chamberland

Mediators do not tell people their legal rights, that’s why you have your legal representative, your lawyer, there with you to tell you what your legal rights are. A mediator hopefully has experience in the area of law that you’re mediating. Here obviously we’re talking about family law issues.

But sometimes the mediator doesn’t have that experience at all, and they’re there to facilitate a settlement. So to that extent the mediator not only is barred from telling you what your legal rights. But they also cannot be called in to court at a later date to talk about what the settlement discussions were about. That’s barred not only by Colorado statute, but by the Colorado “Rules of Evidence” as well.

By: Scott Goldman

An uncontested divorce is the best kind of divorce, to be honest with you. It means that there’s nothing that you’re fighting over, that you have to court for, and have a judge make a determination on. In other words, you’ve gone through your divorce process, but you and your spouse have been able to reach agreement on all of the important factors in your divorce. That includes your parenting plan, all of the issues surrounding how you’re going to deal with the children, all of the issues surrounding child support, maintenance, if that’s important in the case. And you’re able then to go to court with your final agreements and the judge essentially is going to just agree to what you’ve agreed to, unless there is something completely onerous or wrong with it.

In most cases, the judge will rubber stamp what you’ve agreed to. You may or may not have to go in and see the judge for a final hearing, that depends on whether or not you have attorneys, and whether there are child issues involved. But in most cases you’ll be able to avoid going to court altogether and your divorce agreement will become an order of the court just as written. And that would be an uncontested divorce. A contested divorce means that there’s something that you’re going to have to have the judge decide, and you’re going to have to go to court to have the judge decide that. And that the distinction between the two.

By: Leslie Matthews

If you’ve decided that you’re going to get divorced, the very first issue you ought to ask yourself is whether or not you need an attorney, or can you handle it yourself. If you have limited assets, you’ve been married for a very short period of time, and there is no children involved, you may be able to get a divorce without the help of an attorney.

One of the things I do when I’m talking to people, is to help them with that analysis and decide whether they even an attorney or not. The problem with doing it yourself, even under the circumstances I’ve described, is there is a great deal of paperwork, it must be completed properly, there has to be a fair exchange of financial information, and then you are going to have to make at least a couple of appearances in court.

Many people are intimidated by that, and even if they have limited assets in the divorce and it’s been a short term marriage without children, they prefer to have the help of a professional who does it every day. But that’s a decision each individual’s going to have to make.

By: Ray Chamberland