Divorce

THIS IS NY-SPECIFIC AND WON’T APPLY TO OTHER STATES

Although I am not an expert in NY divorce laws, I emailed an attorney that I know to ask her your question. She informed me that a person cannot change the grounds to “no fault” if the divorce was filed prior to 10/12/10.  For a divorce filed before 10/12/10, a person can change grounds from one fault-based ground to another (for example, let’s say the initial ground was cruel and inhuman treatment and now a person wants to change it to abandonment) but not to no fault. The only way for a person to proceed with a no fault divorce that was filed before 10/12/10 would be to discontinue the current action and re-file using no fault. However, discontinuing a present divorce action could have drastic consequences. For example: if there is a request for child support and /or maintenance, that request goes back to when the current divorce was filed. If the current divorce is discontinued, the other spouse would only owe child support or maintenance only from when the divorce is re-filed and the person would lose any retroactive arrears going back to the date of the first filing. This is just one example of a negative consequence – there could be many, many more.

If you are considering trying to change the grounds or trying to proceed with a no fault divorce, I suggest talking to a divorce lawyer first about your particular situation to find out what other negative consequences may apply to your situation. Here is a link for free and paid lawyers: http://www.womenslaw.org/gethelp_state_type.php?type_name=Finding%20a%20…