Getting a Divorce When You Dont Know Where Your Spouse Is

Haven't seen your spouse in years? Hither is the pace by stride procedure y'all need to take to get a divorce when you can't find your spouse!

"Nosotros were so immature"
It happens. You meet your soul mate in high schoolhouse. You program out your entire future, but are only 16. You lot and your lover, we volition phone call him Bobby, decide to get married as soon as y'all plow 18.   Unfortunately, Bobby finds other lovers by the time he is 21 and can go bar hopping. You and Bobby never take children and decide to separate. 10 years accept passed, and you have forgotten nigh Bobby. You lot meet your futurity married man, Chris. When Chris proposes to you, you lot immediately remember nigh that long lost love, Bobby. You realize you never divorced Bobby and you take absolutely no idea what to exercise. What are your options? Continue reading to learn how to become a divorce if y'all can't discover your spouse?
The Unfortunate Formal Process
Unfortunately, you cannot go and sign a piece of paper at the courthouse to obtain your divorce from Bobby. The process is much more complicated. There are a number of steps that must be taken, and information technology can take a while. Information technology is important you lot consult an attorney to ensure you are following the correct procedures. Here are the steps you must take:

1. Filing the Petition for Dissolution

In order to obtain your divorce from Bobby, you need to first file a Petition for Dissolution with the courtroom. This will get you a case number and matter with the court. There is absolutely no mode to obtain a divorce without doing this.

2. Service

Yous have probably heard of a process server. Unremarkably, procedure servers bring bad news. In movies and Television receiver shows, a person will show up at someone's driveway and hand a stack of paperwork to the person who lives at the house and state, "you accept been served." This is exactly what you need to do with your Petition for Dissolution. You need to serve Bobby with information technology.
He's Missing! How in the globe practice I serve him?
Surprisingly, this comes upward a lot. You have absolutely no clue where your spouse or other parent of your child is. Many people think in those situations that they do not need to serve them, or the courtroom will brand an exception. This is incorrect. The court will Non make exception. You MUST serve the other person. If yous do not, your case will likely be dismissed within 120 days of filing your petition. Fortunately, the court provides some solutions to make service easier on missing people.
Lets accept a look at those options:
Rule 41 of the Arizona Rules of Procedure provide the steps y'all must accept to ensure you have properly served the other person. Keep in heed that many of those steps simply utilise if you know where that person is. You must go through the total list of options.
Pick ane: Personal service. Y'all hire a process server to serve the person. This volition only work if you know where the person is.
Selection 2: Mail. Yous transport the Petition and accompanied documents to the person via mail. This will only work if you know where the person is and if they are in the state of Arizona.
Option iii: Culling service. There is a wide range of alternative service options, but in order to accept culling service, you must get permission from the courtroom prior to doing then. So how do yous do this?
Alternative Service
The dominion for alternative service specifically states:

1. Alternative or Substituted Service. If service past one of the means fix forth in the preceding paragraphs of this rule proves impracticable, and so service may be accomplished in such fashion, other than by publication, every bit the court, upon motility and without notice, may direct. Whenever the court allows an alternative or substitute course of service pursuant to this subpart, reasonable efforts shall be undertaken past the party making service to assure that actual notice of the outset of the action is provided to the person to be served and, in any effect, the summons and the pleading to be served, as well as any club of the court authorizing an alternative method of service, shall be mailed to the final known business or residence address of the person to be served. Service past publication may be employed only nether the circumstances, and in accordance with the procedures, specified in paragraph L and Rule 42(E).

So what does this all mean?
After you take filed your petition and accompanying documents with the courtroom, y'all need to make up one's mind whether or not you know where your spouse is. If you do not know where he or she is, y'all must take "reasonable efforts" to find that person. Then what constitutes a reasonable effort? Some types of reasonable efforts may include, calling friends and family members of the other person to determine if they know where he or she is, checking social media websites such equally Twitter and Facebook, hiring a private investigator, conducting a skip trace, serving at the person's terminal known address, and checking other public records.
After you accept taken as many "reasonable efforts" every bit possible, you lot tin and then move frontward with letting the courtroom know y'all need a grade of alternative service, if you lot still take not found the person. To do this, you will need to file a Motion for Alternative or Substituted Service. In your movement you will need to explain where the person was last known to live, and what steps you took to effort and find him or her. You'll want to specifically request that the court allows you lot to conduct alternative service. The court will rule on your motion, and usually provide you with some guidance on how to serve the person, and/or if service was accomplished through your steps. Most likely you volition serve past publication.
Service by Publication
Service past publication is likely to be the most common form of alternative service. Y'all are non required to get permission from the court prior to publishing. However, keep in listen that if you leap directly to publication, information technology may not always work. The court may want yous to try other means prior to publishing. The court may not take jurisdiction over some of your bug. This means the court might non exist able to make decisions for you on some issues. The court cannot make orders regarding paternity, child back up, spousal maintenance, or marital property. Then if there are a number of assets that need to be divided, service past publication will not be the best option. However, if you are in a state of affairs where all you need is a divorce and at that place are no issues, publication will be quick and simple if y'all practise non know where the person is.
In club to satisfy the service by publication rule, y'all must publish in the canton where you concluding knew the other person was living. Yous need to publish in a paper at least once a week for four sequent weeks. The publication should include the summons and a way of obtaining the pleadings. After the four weeks, you should obtain an affirmation from the newspaper visitor showing when you published and what was published. That affidavit will need to exist filed with the court.
So what happens now?
After completing service, whether by alternative service or publication, you must wait for an additional 20 days. The 20 days gives the other person a run a risk to answer to your petition if they disagree with annihilation yous stated in information technology. If, subsequently xx days, no response has been filed, you can move frontwards with what is called default.
Default Procedure
A default means you can go your divorce finalized without every having to find the other person. Information technology is the easiest state of affairs when the other person is missing. Here are the steps you must have:

1. Obtain an Application and Affirmation for Default. This tin be found on the Court website or through your chaser.
2. Fill up out the Application and Affidavit.
3. File the completed Application and Affidavit.
4. Post a filed copy of the Application and Affirmation. If you do not know where they live, ship to the final known address.
5. Await 10 days.
6. Asking a default hearing. You lot can practice then past calling the court or getting on the court website.
7. As y'all wait for the default hearing, you need to prepare some documents to take with you. This includes a Decree of Dissolution (you can go this on the court website). If you lot have children, there are a number of other documents needed. It is recommended to consult an chaser if you are in that state of affairs. Make sure to bring copies of the Decree with you.
8. Go to your hearing. The judge will ask y'all some questions, and likely sign off on your prescript and then and there.
9. Congrats! You are officially divorced!

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Source: https://mymodernlaw.com/how-can-i-get-a-divorce-if-i-cant-find-my-spouse/

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