Getting a Divorce in New Jersey? Divorce Law Cheat Sheet for the State of New Jersey
1. What are the residency requirements for filing for divorce in New Jersey?
You or your spouse must have been a resident of the state for at least one year before filing for divorce in New Jersey, unless you are filing on the ground of adultery, in which case the one-year requirement is waived.
2. Does New Jersey have a waiting period?
No. There are waiting periods associated with various grounds for divorce (see below), but there is no set time between when you file and when the court will hold a hearing.
3. Does the state have grounds for divorce?
Yes. In New Jersey, you may file for divorce on these grounds:
- Adultery (your spouse had an affair).
- Desertion, if your spouse has been gone for at least 12 months.
- Extreme cruelty, which means any physical or mental cruelty that threatens your safety or makes it unreasonable to expect you to live together. You must wait three months after the last incident before filing.
- Separation, if you and your spouse have lived apart for at least 18 months and there is no reasonable hope that you will reconcile.
- Addiction to drugs or habitual drunkenness for more than 12 months.
- Institutionalization for mental illness, if your spouse has been there for at least 24 months.
- Imprisonment for 18 months or more.
- Deviant sexual conduct.
- Irreconcilable differences, if your marriage could be considered broken for at least six months and there is no reasonable hope of reconciliation.
4. How does New Jersey handle division of property in a divorce?
You and your spouse are encouraged to come up with a settlement on your own and present it to the court. If you do, the judge generally accepts this as a property settlement agreement. That agreement includes property, alimony, child support , holidays, summer vacations, debt and more. If you can’t agree, the court will divide your property for you.The court will evaluate your marital property, which includes any property you acquired after you were married. It will exclude your non-marital property, which is:
- Property that you acquired before you were married.
- Property that you acquired by gift or inheritance.
- Income from your non-marital property.
Your property will be divided in a way the court decides is most equitable, or fair. To determine that, the court takes into account:
- How long you were married.
- You and your spouse’s ages and physical and emotional health.
- Any income or property you brought to your marriage.
- The standard of living you established during your marriage.
- Any written agreement between you and your spouse regarding a division of your property.
- You and your spouse’s economic situations.
- You and your spouse’s incomes and earning capacities, including your educational backgrounds, training, employment skills, work experience, whether one of you left the job market and your custodial responsibilities for your children.
- How long it would take and how much it would cost to get any training or education necessary to allow each of you to support yourselves at a standard of living similar to While you were married.
- How you or your spouse might have contributed to the education, training or earning power of the other.
- You and your spouse’s contributions to the acquisition, loss, improvement or care of your marital property, including contributions as a homemaker
- The tax situation you each will face after your property is divided.
- The present value of your property.
- Whether the parent who has physical custody of your child should be awarded or allowed to live in your family home.
- You and your spouse’s debts.
- Whether a trust fund is needed for medical or educational costs for one of you or your child.
- Whether one of you put off achieving your career goals.
- Any other factors the court decides are relevant.
5. Does New Jersey require mediation before a divorce is granted?
Mediation is not a standard requirement, though the judge may order it in your case to solve disputes over finances, custody or visitation. The court does require all parents to attend a Parent Education Program designed to help you and your spouse navigate the legal process of your divorce, your financial responsibilities for your child, your child’s reaction to your divorce and any other questions or concerns surrounding your family relationships.
6. How does the state determine child custody?
Legal custody and physical custody are two different things. Legal custody outlines how involved each parent is in the major decisions of a child’s life — where a child goes to school, what faith he or she is raised in and other biggies.
Physical custody addresses where a child will live and with whom. Visitation is then negotiated based your physical custody arrangement. The court will put into place any custody arrangement that you and your spouse both agree to unless it’s not in the best interest of your child. If you and your spouse can’t agree on a custody arrangement, the court may require you each to submit a custody plan for its consideration.
The state’s policy is to assure frequent and continuing contact between your child and each of you. It also considers shared parenting responsibilities to be best when possible. Overall, the court’s decision will be guided by what is in the best interest of your child. To determine that, the court will consider:
- You and your spouse’s ability to agree and cooperate with regard to your child.
- You and your spouse’s willingness to accept custody, or whether one of you has denied the other parenting time.
- Your child’s relationship with each of you and his or her siblings.
- Any history of domestic violence.
- Whether the safety of your child or one of you is at risk from the other.
- Your child’s wishes, if the court decides he or she is mature enough to express an opinion.
- Your child’s needs.
- The stability of the home environment.
- The quality of your child’s education.
- How fit you and your spouse are as parents.
- The distance between you and your spouse’s homes.
- The quantity and quality of time each of you has spent with your child.
- You and your spouse’s job responsibilities.
- Your child’s age and, if you have more than one child, how many.
Custody or visitation will not be awarded to a parent convicted of sexual assault unless there’s clear evidence that contact is in the best interest of your child.Your child’s grandparents or siblings may petition the court for visitation. They will have to prove that visitation is in your child’s best interest. In reviewing the application, the court will consider:
- Your child’s relationship with the individual.
- You and your spouse’s relationships with the individual.
- The effects of visitation on the relationship between your child and you and your spouse.
- The arrangement between you and your spouse for sharing time with your child.
- The motivation of the individual seeking visitation.
- Any history of physical, emotional or sexual abuse or neglect by that individual.
- Any other factor relevant to the best interest of your child.
7. How does the state calculate child support?
New Jersey calculates child support using a set of state guidelines. In these guidelines, the average amounts spent on children (as determined by research) are divided between you and your spouse in proportion to your incomes. You’ll complete a worksheet that will give you a basic support amount.
Unreimbursed health-care expenses up to and including $250 per child per year are already built into the support figures — they’re not considered separately.
The costs of work-related child care and health insurance are not built into the support amounts and will be added on to the basic total. Unreimbursed health-care expenses in excess of $250 per child per year also will be added on to the basic support amount if they are predictable and recurring. If they’re random, then you and your spouse will share those expenses as they come up in proportion to your incomes.
The court may include in your support amount any predictable and recurring expenses such as private school, any special needs for gifted or disabled children and visitation transportation expenses. Other factors that may cause the court to vary from the basic amount:
- You or your spouse has other legal dependents.
- You or your spouse has support obligations to other children.
- Your child is receiving government benefits.
- You and your spouse each have your child for two or more overnights each week, which might call for a shared-parenting child support award.
If one of you is requesting alimony, the court will determine the amount of alimony before applying the child support guidelines, so that the amount of alimony is deducted from the paying parent’s income and added to the recipient’s income to determine each parent’s gross income. This way your incomes on the worksheet reflect how much income each of you has after alimony is paid.
In determining whether the support amount is appropriate, the court will take into account the following factors:
- Your child’s needs.
- You and your spouse’s standard of living and your economic circumstances.
- You and your spouse’s incomes and assets.
- You and your spouse’s earning capacities, including your educational backgrounds, training, employment skills, work experience, whether one of you left the job market and your custodial responsibilities for your children.
- The time and expense to get any training or education necessary to allow each of you to support yourselves at a standard of living similar to while you were married.
- Your child’s academic needs and abilities, including college.
- You and your spouse’s ages and health.
- Your child’s income, assets and earning ability, if any.
- You or your spouse’s court-ordered responsibilities for others, if any.
- Any debt held by you, your spouse or your child.
- Any other factors the court decides are relevant.
The court also may evaluate the support order in light of these special considerations:
- The need to distribute your property fairly.
- Your income taxes and how they would be affected by support.
- Any fixed payments, such as mortgage payments.
- You or your spouse’s unreimbursed medical or dental expenses.
- Educational expenses for your child, including private or parochial school, a trade school or college.
- Educational expenses for you or your spouse to improve your earning ability.
- Whether there are more than six children in your household.
- Whether your child has been voluntarily placed in foster care.
- Any special needs for a gifted or disabled child.
- The ages of your children.
- The hidden costs of caring for your child, such as a reduced income, decreased career opportunities, a lack of time to shop economically, or a loss of savings.
- Whether your child has an exceptionally high income, such as from acting or from a trust.
- Any substantial financial obligations you or your spouse might have for the care of a parent, grandparent or other elder.
- The tax advantages of paying for your child’s health insurance.
- Whether one of you owes support to more than one family.
8. How does the state determine and calculate alimony?
Alimony is not a given in a divorce case, but you or your spouse may request it. New Jersey allows for four types of alimony: permanent, rehabilitative, limited duration and reimbursement. You may be awarded more than one type of alimony.
Permanent alimony is self-explanatory. Limited duration alimony is awarded for a period long enough to allow the recipient to increase his or her earning capacity. Rehabilitative alimony is awarded based on a plan in which the recipient outlines what is necessary to become self-supporting and offers a time frame in which that will happen. Reimbursement alimony might be awarded if one of you supported the other during his or her education with the idea that the increased earning capacity at the end would benefit both of you.
If you decide to seek alimony, the court will consider:
- Your actual needs and the ability of your spouse to pay.
- How long you were married.
- You and your spouse’s ages and physical and emotional health.
- The standard of living you established while you were married, and whether each of you can maintain something relatively close after your divorce.
- You and your spouse’s earning abilities, education, skills and employability.
- How long you were out of the job market.
- You and your spouse’s responsibilities for your child.
- How long it would take you to get the training or education necessary to find a job, the availability of that training or education, and your opportunities for future income.
- You and your spouse’s contributions to your marriage, both financial and non-financial, including caring for your child or putting your career or education on hold.
- The results of your property division and any payouts.
- You and your spouse’s income from investments, if any.
- How an alimony award would affect you and your spouse’s taxes.
- Any other factors that the court considers relevant.
Permanent and limited duration alimony end if you remarry. Rehabilitative and reimbursement alimony may continue unless the court finds that the circumstances on which the award was based didn’t occur. Alimony also ceases if you or your spouse dies.
9. Is there a waiting period before remarriage in New Jersey?
No, you are free to remarry after the court delivers the final judgment ending your marriage.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
You’ll find New Jersey’s state statutes online here.
For information about the state’s program for mediation of financial issues in family law, see www.judiciary.state.nj.us/family/rosters/index.htm.
New Jersey’s child support guidelines and worksheets can be found, here.
The New Jersey Department of Human Services hosts a child support website, here.
