NC - specific info

If the whereabouts of the person that a petitioner is seeking a divorce from are unknown, the petitioner in the divorce may be able to “serve” the divorce papers on his/her spouse by “publication.” This generally means that the petitioner may have to pay to put a legal notice in the newspaper alerting his/her spouse of the divorce proceedings - however the specific steps in each state may vary. I do not know what your state requires. It could be possible that the petitioner might have to publish it in the paper multiple times or in multiple papers depending on what the court advises him/her. This can be expensive. Usually, before this is done, the court has to grant permission to serve by publication. Before getting permission from the court to serve the papers by publication, the petitioner may probably be required to perform a thorough search for the person in the general location of his/her last known address. This might include looking at records from the board of elections, department of motor vehicles, etc. If the spouse doesn’t respond to the notice in the paper after a certain amount of time, the petitioner may be able to get the divorce anyway.

Again, what I have described above is just a general overview of what might have to be done. Although I do not specifically know about NC’s laws on this, I did contact an attorney in NC to ask – she informed me that North Carolina does allow for service by publication and the governing rule is NCGS 1A-1, Rule 4, found here: http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/enactedlegislation/statutes/html/bysection/c…

Clearly, by looking at it, you will see it is very complex. In order to get the exact steps as to what you would need to do, you might want to consult with a divorce attorney who is familiar with doing a divorce with this type of publication service. I am attaching the link from our website for legal services:http://www.womenslaw.org/gethelp_state_type.php?type_name=Finding%20a%20…

If you want to try to do it on your own, you might want to see if your local court house has an office of the self-represented (also known as “pro se”) and ask one of the attorneys there for the specific steps that need to be followed. Here, too, is some general information about divorce in your state in case that is useful: http://www.womenslaw.org/laws_state_type.php?statelaw_name=Divorce&state…