Florida Missing Spouse Divorce Process Explained

Missing Spouse Divorce Process

How long does a divorce by publication takes in Florida?

A divorce by publication in Florida takes approximately 3-4 months. How long the divorce takes will depend mostly on how quickly a final court hearing can be obtained.

How much does a divorce by publication costs in Florida?

It depends. Like any legal matter, an attorney will cost more but he/she will be responsible for the process. A legal document preparer may be able to help you with a lot of the divorce by publication process while keeping the cost down.

Also known as a divorce by publication, this type of divorce takes time and when done correctly take a short court hearing to be signed by the judge. If your gay or lesbian spouse is missing, and you have no idea where to find him/her, you can get divorced by posting a publication in a local newspaper.

Before you can start with publication or posting, you got to make a diligent effort to locate your missing spouse before asking a court to grant a default divorce.

The court will grant an order for a divorce by publication only if other methods of service are not possible, and enough attempts have been made to locate your missing spouse.
In order to get the court to grant your divorce paperwork by publication granted, you need to do the following:

Find the last known address of your spouse. Ask his friends, family, current and past employers and any unions to find out where your spouse may live.
Research your spouse's name on google or any other internet search engine. There are internet services you can use to locate people at very small fee.
Find out if he/she is in jail, if this is affirmative, then your divorce will be a divorce by summons.
Find out if he/she is in the military. If the person has been deployed then you must wait until your spouse is on State side prior to deciding what kind of divorce can be done.
If your spouse owned a house, check the tax assessor's website in the county of your spouse last known address, a new address may be listed there.
Finally follow on any leads on any other leads you can think of, including trade associations, or licensing agencies that may have information.

Make sure that you keep a clean and accurate record of information you collected, so that you are able to show the court that you can't find your spouse and that you entitled to a default divorce.

Once you have done your diligent search then you can submit the divorce by publication paperwork.