Recently, Indiana House Bill 1252 was introduced.  The purpose of this bill was to change the requirements of filing for divorce if there are minor children of the marriage.  Essentially, the bill would have forced parties to cooperate before they ever filed for divorce.  The bill would have made it a requirement that neither party could file for divorce until 120 days have passed since the parties (both of them) had completed a “divorce education program.”  If only one of the parents have completed the class then they must wait for a period of 300 days before they could file.  Certainly there are exceptions in this bill, but it greatly changes Indiana’s relatively easy to meet divorce requirements.

This bill has not made it out of it’s first committee assignment, which at this point would mean that it is pretty much dead in the water, which in my opinion, is a good thing.  I am certainly a supporter of parents working together for the benefit of the children while going through a divorce, the reality is that this bill would have created many different problems for those without the money to afford the divorce education requirement (or counties that would likely be forced to provide some of these services for those who cannot afford it).

The current divorce requirements are simply that you have to be a resident of Indiana for the last 6 months and a resident of the county where you are filing for the last 3 months.

You can read the bill here.

The Law Office of Jeffery M. Haupt is located in South Bend, Indiana and helps people handle family law issues such as divorce, child support, paternity, and child custody, criminal defense matters, DUIs, theft charges, and license suspensions; and financial matters such as Bankruptcy and Foreclosure. The information in this blog should only be used for educational purposes and not be construed as legal advice. Nothing in this blog creates an attorney-client relationship between me and any readers of this blog. No attorney-client relationship is created until you have a document from me saying so.  DO NOT POST ABOUT CASE PARTICULARS IN THE COMMENT SECTION.