In Connecticut, if couples wanted to get a divorce, they had to go through a 90-day waiting period, often referred to as the “cooling off period”. New laws in Connecticut make it so that the waiting period can be waived. You can learn more about it here.
Waiving the Cooling Off Period
If you want to waive the waiting period for divorce in Connecticut, you need to fill out a form. Legislature changed the length of this waiting period recently, so you can get the cooling off period waived. In this case, you can get divorced very quickly if you and your spouse have an agreement.
Sometimes we utilize this when people take a collaborative approach to divorce. You might sort everything out with your spouse before filing for divorce. If you and your spouse reach an agreement, you could get divorced by the court within 10 days.
But, keep in mind that it’s very rare that people have an agreement that soon. It usually takes a long time to exchange all of the paperwork to understand what the assets are. But, if you’re able to do it in advance through a mediation or collaborative process, there’s no reason that you can’t file and get the divorce within a short period of time.
Time Period of Divorce
Due to this change, two people could get divorced in as short a time period as a few weeks. On the other end of things, you could expect that your divorce usually won’t take more than a year and a half. Courts start to get very antsy with you if the case is more than a year old. I’ve seen cases drag on for a long time, but courts rarely allow it to go past a year and a half.
There are a variety of factors that could drag out your divorce. Sometimes continuances will occur. A continuance is when a court date is “continued” or moved to a future date. Continuances could happen for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the courts indulge them, sometimes they don’t. Or if you decide late in the process that you needed an evaluation done by a comprehensive evaluator, those people take several months to finish an evaluation. A court won’t do anything until that person issues their report.
Help With Your Divorce
As you can see, your divorce could take only a few weeks, or over a year, depending on your situation. No matter what your situation is, we can help. Contact us for more information.