Getting a Divorce in Washington, D.C.? Divorce Law Cheat Sheet for Washington, D.C.
1. What are the residency requirements for filing for divorce in Washington, D.C.?
You or your spouse must have been a resident of the District of Columbia for at least six months before filing for divorce. You also may file there if you are a member of the armed services and have been living there for at least six months.
2. Does Washington, D.C., have a waiting period?
No, there is no waiting period in D.C.
3. Does the district have grounds for divorce?
Yes. You may file on these grounds: you and your spouse have mutually and voluntarily lived apart for at least six months you and your spouse have lived apart for at least a year.
4. How does Washington, D.C., 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. Your separate property remains your own. This includes:
- Property that you acquired before your marriage property that you acquired by gift or inheritance.
- Property that you received in exchange for property that you acquired by gift or inheritance.
- Anything excluded by prenuptial agreement.
The court will divvy your marital property, which means anything else you or your spouse acquired while you were married, regardless of whose name is on the title. It will do so in whatever way seems equitable, or fair, taking into consideration these factors:
- How long you were married you and your spouse’s ages, health, jobs, amount and sources of income, skills, employability, assets, debts and needs.
- The custody of your children.
- Whether property will be allocated instead of or in addition to alimony,
- Any responsibilities you or your spouse has to support a previous spouse or other children.
- You and your spouse’s opportunities for future income,
- Tou and your spouse’s contributions to your family, including as a homemaker.
- Any contributions you or your spouse made to the education of the other to increase his or her earning ability.
- Whether you or your spouse’s incomes increased or decreased as a result of your marriage and responsibilities for your home and children.
- You and your spouse’s contributions to the acquisition, care for, destruction of or wasting of your marital property.
- How your assets would be taxed and whether assets or debts were accumulated after your separation,
- The circumstances that led to your divorce.
5. Does Washington, D.C., require mediation before a divorce is granted?
Mediation is not a requirement, though the court may order it in your case if you and your spouse disagree over child custody or visitation.
6. How does the district 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 big issues. Physical custody addresses where a child will live and with whom. Visitation is then negotiated based your physical custody arrangement.
When determining custody, the court may order you and your spouse to each submit a detailed parenting plan that addresses your rights and responsibilities for your child, including:
- Where your child will live.
- What financial support your child will require and what resources you and your spouse have for meeting that need.
- Visitation, holidays, birthdays and vacations.
- Transportation of your child between you and your spouse’s home.
- Your child’s education.
- Your child’s religious training.
- If any access to your child’s educational, medical, psychiatric and dental treatment records, who will be responsible for medical, psychiatric and dental treatment decisions (except in emergencies).
- Your child’s communication with each of you.
- How you and your spouse will resolve disputes before going to court, such as mediation or family counseling.
The court will review your parenting plans and take them into consideration when determining custody. It also may order you, your spouse or both of you to go to parenting classes.The court presumes that joint custody is best for your child, offering frequent and continuing contact between your child and each of you (unless there is evidence of child abuse). But above all, the court seeks an arrangement that serves your child’s best interest. To determine just what that is, the court will take into consideration:
- Your child’s wishes.
- You and your spouse’s wishes.
- Your child’s relationship with his or her siblings, you and your spouse, and any other person who may be significant in his or her life.
- Your child’s adjustment to his or her home, school and community.
- The mental and physical health of everyone involved.
- Any evidence of domestic abuse.
- You and your spouse’s abilities to communicate and cooperate to make decisions for your child.
- You and your spouse’s willingness to share custody.
- You and your spouse’s previous involvement in your child’s life.
- Any potential for disruption of your child’s social and school life.
- How close you and your spouse live and how that will affect visitation.
- The demands of you and your spouse’s jobs.
- How many children you have and their ages.
- How sincere you and your spouse are regarding your custodial request.
- You and your spouse’s abilities to financially support a joint custody arrangement.
- If you are receiving public assistance, how custody would affect that situation the benefit to you and your spouse of your custodial arrangement.
7. How does the district calculate child support?
You and your spouse may submit a plan to the court for child support. The court will compare it to the standard child support guidelines; if it differs, the court will rule on whether that different amount is fair.
Otherwise, child support is determined by a set of guidelines based on you and your spouse’s combined adjusted gross income. You’ll use this figure to find your basic child support obligation on a chart. Then you and your spouse will share that obligation in the same proportions as your individual incomes are to your combined income.
In a standard custody arrangement where one parent is the primary physical custodian, the other parent with whom the child does not live is the one to pay support. (If your child spends 35 percent or more of the year with each of you, this is considered shared physical custody and calls for a different calculation.) The basic amount is adjusted for health insurance premiums, extraordinary medical expenses and child care expenses.
The cost of health insurance for your child is divided in proportion to your incomes, as are extraordinary medical expenses — uninsured or unreimbursed medical expenses in excess of $250 per year, including co-payments, deductibles and reasonable costs for orthodontia, dental treatment, asthma treatments, physical therapy, vision care, or diagnosis or treatment of a health condition. Work- or education-related child care expenses also are divided between you and your spouse in proportion to your incomes.
Alimony paid by either parent to the other parent is deducted from the gross income of the parent paying the alimony before the child support obligation is figured. Any alimony received, including alimony received from the parent who is being ordered to pay child support, is added to the gross income of the parent receiving the alimony before the child support obligation is figured.
If you or your spouse is supporting other children not a part of this support order, then there is an additional bit of math to determine a deduction in gross income. The court presumes that the support order resulting from the guidelines is appropriate. But the court also may take into consideration any of these possible situations:
- Your child’s needs are exceptional and will require more than average expenses.
- The gross income of the parent ordered to pay support is significantly less than the gross income of the parent who is to receive support.
- Your property settlement already offers enough resources to support your child equivalent to the guidelines amount.
- This support order on top of other existing support responsibilities would create an extraordinary hardship the parent ordered to pay support needs a temporary break in payments to take care of some other financial obligations.
- Other children not from your marriage who live with the parent to receive support are receiving other support that would make the standard of living in that household much higher than the standard of living for the parent who is to pay support.
- Your child has some regular and substantial income that could be used for his or her support without hurting his or her current or future educational opportunities.
- The parent ordered to pay support has special needs that make his or her basic cost of living higher.
- The parent ordered to pay support already pays for some expensive necessities for your child, such as tuition.
- The parent ordered to pay support is 18 or younger and a full-time student.
- Your children are living elsewhere as a result of neglect, with the goal of eventually returning to you any other special circumstance that would make the guidelines unfair.
8. How does the district determine and calculate alimony?
Alimony is not a standard part of a divorce case, but you or your spouse may request it. If you decide to seek alimony, the court will consider the following factors in determining whether to award it and, if so, how much and for how long:
- Your ability to support yourself, in part or in full.
- How long it would take you to get the education or training necessary to find a job.
- The standard of living you and your spouse established during your marriage (taking into account the fact that there are now two households to maintain).
- How long you were married.
- The circumstances that led to your divorce.
- You and your spouse’s ages.
- You and your spouse’s physical and mental conditions.
- Your spouse’s ability to meet his or her own needs while paying alimony.
- You and your spouse’s financial conditions, including your incomes, assets, potential income, child support, debts, retirement benefits and what income is taxable.
9. Is there a waiting period before remarriage in Washington, D.C.?
Yes. Your decree is not final until 30 days after the judgment in your case, unless you and your spouse file jointly to waive your right to appeal the divorce.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
You’ll find the District of Columbia’s code online here.
The child support division maintains a site at http://csed.dc.gov/csed/site/default.asp.
