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Some people I talk to say, “Please tell me everything I need to know about an uncontested divorce in Florida.”

Welcome, everybody. I’m A.J. Grossman, Divorce Lawyer, Florida Supreme Court Certified Family Mediator and Dispute Resolution Specialist with LeapFrog Divorce.

So what do you need to know about uncontested divorce? All right, let’s start with defining it.

An uncontested divorce basically means that you and your spouse have come to an agreement on all the issues in your divorce.

So, if you’re parents, you’ve agreed how you’re going to co-parent your children after you’re divorced. You’ve agreed to how you’re going to split up the things that you own, your assets, and the things that you owe, your debts or liabilities.

You’ve also agreed whether there will be any alimony in your situation, financial support to the other one. You’ve also come to an agreement regarding what child support is going to be.

And basically, there’s no issues left to agree on. You’ve settled everything. That will qualify for an uncontested divorce.

So what that means is, you don’t have to go in front of a judge to have a judge make a decision about how your divorce is going to be settled. You’ve done that already.

So really, it’s a streamlined process, which does vary from county to county. But for the most part, it’s a streamlined process where you should be able to get divorced within maybe two months, maybe three months.

We do have a mandatory waiting period in Florida of 20 days, which means a judge has to wait at least 20 days after you file your petition for dissolution of marriage, or your petition for divorce, before he or she can enter what’s called your final judgment.

And your final judgment is that last piece of paper that officially restores you and your spouse back to the status of single people.

And so an uncontested divorce should not cost as much as a contested divorce. Costs will vary. They will vary depending upon whether you decide to hire a lawyer or lawyers or not, or whether you decide to go to a mediator or a document preparation service, whomever you’re going to use to help you with your uncontested divorce.

So the cost will vary.

It will also depend upon whether you have children or not. If you don’t have any minor children, then your uncontested divorce will likely be less expensive than if you have children.

And the reason for that is because Florida requires what’s called a parenting plan. It’s a document that specifies what the visitation agreement is for your children and the custody agreement. It specifies where your child or children are going to spend holidays, you know, either with mom or with dad, as well as how, where that child is going to sleep at night.

And so it takes a little bit more time. It takes some extra work to prepare a parenting plan, so that uncontested divorce with children is likely going to cost more than an uncontested divorce without children.

Will you have to appear in front of a judge?

There are some counties that require husbands and wives, or husbands and husbands, or wives and wives, whatever your situation may be, to make an appearance in front of a judge in order to get that final judgment.

And then there are other counties who don’t require that. You can simply mail in your divorce paperwork packet to the judge, and the judge will review it and sign it and enter the final judgment.

So it’s really going to depend on the county.

What else can I tell you about uncontested divorce?

Can you do it yourself without hiring a lawyer or without hiring a mediator?

Yes, you can. All of the forms are available online. You can find them for free.

If you don’t want to try and find them, you could go to the clerk of courts at your local courthouse. They may or may not have a packet of those forms available for a nominal fee, maybe $20 or $25.

And some of our courthouses have what I’ll call self-help centers where they’re staffed, or not, with lawyers that you can pay to have them review your paperwork or answer your questions or give you advice.

So can you do it? Yes.

Would I recommend that you do it? Not in all circumstances.

There are some situations where it’s probably perfectly okay for somebody to try and do their own uncontested divorce.

But there are other situations where I would not recommend it.

And those situations where I would not recommend a DIY uncontested divorce would be those situations where one or both of you have pensions, retirement accounts, like 401(k)s or 403(b)s, if you have IRAs, if you have investments in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, cryptocurrencies, venture capital that you’ve invested in a business, if you own a business, if you own multiple properties.

Those are not situations where I would ever recommend that somebody do a DIY uncontested divorce.

I think at the bare minimum, you should invest some time and a little bit of money to consult with a lawyer who does this work day in and day out.

I’ve been helping people divorce in Florida for over a decade now. And that’s all I do. I don’t do bankruptcy. I don’t do immigration. I don’t do personal injury. All I do is divorce work. And that’s all I’ve done for over a decade.

And so spending a little bit of money and spending some time to come to somebody like me to ask all your questions can be incredibly valuable.

So I hope you found this video helpful and valuable. If so, please consider liking it and please consider subscribing to my channel. I’m releasing new videos all the time.

I’m A.J. Grossman with LeapFrog Divorce. Have a wonderful day and be well.