divorce details

[bobandjess99]

Question about Indiana divorce law. This is basically the opposite of most of the questions here. If a divorcing couple is completely amicable and wants to involve the law/court as little as possible in their lives, what is the absolute minimum that can be in a divorce decree? Can the couple define their own parenting schedule, their own agreed-upon support amount, their own division of property?? Their own guidelines for holidays, vacations, schooling, religion, medical care, insurance ,etc?? How much detail actually has to go into the divorce decree?? Could a judge refuse to sugn if he/she didn't like the agreement?? If a decree was changed by the judge and the couple just signed it, but both privately agreed not to abide by the terms of it but to do what they wanted to instead, would that be ok??
Thanks, Jess

 

[tigger22472]

My boyfriend and his ex wife were in this exact situation. They set up EVERYTHING in their divorce. If I'm not mistaken they didn't even have a lawyer, however if they did it was one. They set up visitation for their child where the child spends two weeks with mom and two weeks with dad and no one pays support. They had things like how they did taxes(who ever gets the most back for child claims her then that money goes into an account for her), whoever bought a house first the other had to live or move close by so that the 2week/2week thing would continue once she started school, they set up their holiday schedule too. Only thing I think they forgot was to include Halloween as a holiday and it seems every year she is at her mom's house. With us closer it's not such a problem now. He says they simply went gave it to the judge and he signed it. I'm not even sure they even went to court over it. It's the best set up that I've ever seen. I'm not saying that I've not seen the two of them go at it a few times but tell me how many people have their ex wife's family picture hanging on their living room wall? She's now married with two step-kids and this past New Years eve her son, their daughter and her step-daughter were at our house for a kid New Year's Eve party.

 

[irisheyes_ny]

question for tigger

Hi..my husband and I are separated..we have all the details about the kids, holidays everything taken care of..so can we just take the separation papers and use them for the divorce? they must have gone to an arbitrator..I spent over 3,000 on the separation and I really don't have the money to spend on a divorce..

 

[dorenephilpot]

You can agree to whatever you want. The court can disagree and order something different.

If you want to do it differently and do do it differently, more power to you.

However, it can bite you in the patootie later. How?

Say the court orders child support to be paid but the parties agree that they don't want to do that.

Later on, one spouse gets P.O.'ed about something and decides to enforce the support payment that was originally ordered.

Then their verbal agreement means nothing, and there is a huge support arrearage that is due and enforceable.

However, if no one ever complains or seeks enforcement of the court's actual order, then there is no problem.