Getting a Divorce in Pennsylvania? Divorce Law Cheat Sheet in the State of Pennsylvania
1. What are the residency requirements for filing for divorce in Pennsylvania?
You or your spouse must have been a resident for at least six months before filing. You may file in the county in which your spouse resides or, if he or she lives out of state, where you reside.
2. Does Pennsylvania have a waiting period?
If the court thinks there is reason to believe you and your spouse might reconcile, it will continue your case for between 90 and 120 days and require you to attend counseling. If you haven’t reconciled at the end of that period and one of you says under oath that your marriage is irretrievably broken, the court will rule on whether it is or isn’t.
If you file based on the ground of irreconcilable differences and the court orders a continuation period, but you or your spouse requests counseling or you have at least one child younger than 16, then the court may order as many as three counseling sessions within that time period.
If you file based on the ground that your spouse has forced you to endure indignities so significant that your life is intolerable, but you or your spouse requests counseling, the court will require as many as three counseling sessions.
If you file based on the ground of mutual consent for a divorce, but you or your spouse requests counseling, the court will require as many as three counseling sessions within 90 days of filing.
3. Does the state have grounds for divorce?
Yes. In Pennsylvania you may file for a divorce on the grounds of:
- Committed willful and malicious desertion, which means your spouse has left you and your home without a good reason and has been gone for at least one year.
- Adultery, which means your spouse had an affair.
- Cruel and barbarous treatment, which means your spouse has endangered your life or your health.
- Bigamy, which means your spouse married you while he or she was still married to someone else.
- Imprisonment, if your spouse has been sentenced to two or more years.
- Indignities so great that they’ve made your life intolerable.
- Institutionalization, if your spouse has been confined to a mental institution for at least 18 months and there is no reason to believe that he or she will be released within 18 months of filing. This requires a certificate from the superintendent of your spouse’s institution and a supporting statement from a physician who is treating your spouse.
- Mutual consent, if you and your spouse each file an affidavit saying that you consent to your divorce, your marriage is irretrievably broken and at least 90 days have passed since you filed.
- Irretrievable breakdown, if you have filed an affidavit saying that you and your spouse have lived separately for at least two years and your marriage is irretrievably broken, as long as your spouse doesn’t deny that your marriage is broken or, if he or she does disagree, the court finds your marriage is irretrievably broken.
You will not be granted a divorce on the ground of adultery if the court finds that you:
- Have been guilty of adultery, too.
- Knew about the adultery but resumed sexual relations with your spouse.
- Allowed your spouse to commit adultery.
- Exposed your spouse to situations that resulted in adultery.
4. How does Pennsylvania determine the division of property?
You and your spouse are encouraged to come up with a settlement on your own and present it to the court. If you can’t agree, the court will divide your property for you.Pennsylvania defines marital property as all property acquired by you or your spouse during your marriage (regardless of whose name is on the title), including any increase in value of your non-marital property.
Pennsylvania defines your non-marital property as:
- Property that you acquired before your marriage or property that you received in exchange for property that you acquired before you were married.
- Property that you and your spouse agreed to exclude from marital property.
- Property that you acquired by gift or inheritance, unless the gift was from your spouse.
- Property that you acquired between the dates of your separation and your divorce, except any property that you received in exchange for marital assets.
- Property that one of you sold or otherwise disposed of in good faith and for value before your date of separation.
- Veterans’ benefits that are exempt from consideration.
- Property that has been mortgage or otherwise tied up in good faith and for value before your date of separation.
- Any payment or settlement awarded for a cause or action that happened before your marriage or after your final separation, even if you received that payment or settlement while you were married.
The court will divide your property equitably, or in whatever way it deems fair, regardless of who is at fault in your divorce. In determining what is fair, the court will consider:
- How long you were married.
- Whether either of you was married previously.
- You and your spouse’s ages, health, lifestyles, and amount and source of incomes, including medical, retirement and insurance benefits.
- You and your spouse’s skills, employability, estates, debts and needs.
- Whether one of you contributed to the education, training or increased earning power of the other.
- You and your spouse’s opportunities for future assets and income.
- How each of you contributed toward or wasted your marital property, including any contributions as a homemaker.
- The value of the property set apart to each of you.
- The standard of living you and your spouse enjoyed while you were married.
- You and your spouse’s economic circumstances, including the tax ramifications for each of you with the division of your property.
- Whether either of you will be custodian to any children.
5. Does Pennsylvania require mediation before a divorce is granted?
Mediation is not always required, though the court may order it in your case if you and your spouse disagree over custody or visitation for your children.
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.
In sorting out custody and visitation, the court will take into consideration which of you is more likely to encourage frequent contact between your child and the other parent. It also will weigh whether you, your spouse or any other adult in either of your households has a history of violent conduct or criminal convictions involving physical or sexual abuse, sexual conduct or domestic violence. If there is evidence of this, the court will order counseling for that parent, may order periodic counseling as part of a custody and visitation decision, or may order sole custody for the other parent if it’s in your child’s best interest.
As a general rule, the court may require you and your spouse to attend counseling and may consider the recommendations of the counselors before awarding sole or shared custody. These counseling sessions may include discussions of the responsibilities and decision-making arrangements involved in both sole and shared custody and how suitable each arrangement would be for you and your spouse.
The court may require you and your spouse to submit a plan for custody. It also will consider you and your spouse’s characters, your child’s proposed living arrangements, you and your spouse’s parenting abilities, and your abilities to provide for your child’s physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual well-being.
Your child’s grandparents or great-grandparents also may petition the court for visitation. If your child lived with them for more than a year, they may seek partial custody and visitation, which the court might award if it would be in your child’s best interest.
7. How does the state calculate child support?
Pennsylvania awards child support according to a set of state guidelines based primarily on you and your spouse’s net incomes and earning capacities. It’s presumed that the support amount indicated by the guidelines is appropriate.
The court will determine the amount of any health insurance deductibles and copayments that you and your spouse each will pay. In addition, the court may require you or your spouse to pay a designated percentage of your child’s reasonable and necessary uncovered health-care expenses.
The court also may order you and your spouse to pay for college for your child (only after your child has applied for scholarships, grants and work-study opportunities). Either parent may ask the court to order this, as can your child if he or she is older than 18. In weighing such a request, the court will taking into consideration:
- You and your spouse’s financial resources.
- Your child’s financial resources.
- Any educational loans or financial assistance your child received.
- Your child’s ability and willingness to finish college.
- Whether your child is estranged because of his or her own actions.
- Your child’s ability to work to pay for some of his or her expenses.
- Any other factor the court decides is relevant.
The court will not order support for educational costs under any of the following circumstances:
- Itwould cause one of you undue financial hardship.
- Your child is entering graduate studies.
- Your child will be older than 23 before the order expires.
Your obligation to contribute toward your child’s educational costs will not include payments to the other parent for your child’s living expenses at home unless he or she lives at home with the other parent and commutes to school.
8. How does the state determine and calculate alimony?
Alimony is not a given in a divorce case, though you or your spouse may request it. If you decide to seek alimony, the court will consider these factors in deciding whether to award it and, if so, how much and for how long:
- You and your spouse’s earnings and earning capacities.
- You and your spouse’s ages and mental, physical and emotional conditions.
- You and your spouse’s sources of income, including medical, retirement and insurance benefits.
- You and your spouse’s possible inheritances.
- How long you were married.
- What contributions either of you made toward the education, training or increased earning power of the other.
- The extent to which custody of your child will affect you or your spouse’s earning power, expenses or financial obligations.
- The standard of living you and your spouse enjoyed while you were married.
- You and your spouse’s educational levels and how long it would take you to get the education or training necessary to be self-supporting.
- You and your spouse’s assets and debts.
- The property you and your spouse each brought to your marriage.
- What contributions you or your spouse made as a homemaker.
- You and your spouse’s needs.
- Any marital misconduct on the part of you or your spouse, such as abuse.
- The tax ramifications for each of you if alimony is awarded.
- Whether you lack enough property to meet your reasonable needs.
- Whether you are incapable of supporting yourself through an appropriate job.
Alimony ends when the person receiving it remarries. Alimony will not be awarded if you move in with a member of the opposite sex who is not a family member. Alimony also ends with the death of you or your spouse. Alimony may include a portion of your necessary health care expenses.
9. Is there a waiting period before remarriage in Pennsylvania?
No, you are free to remarry after the court delivers the final judgment ending your marriage.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Portions of the Pennsylvania state statutes have been posted online, here.
The state’s child support statutes are online, here.
The Pennsylvania Child Support Site can be found, here.
