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A little complicated -- What should he do?

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What is the name of your state? CA

I have a question regarding a friend of mine.

My friend and his wife have been separated for a long time. He is now living in Texas and was planning on filing for divorce just as soon as he met the 6 month residency requirement. In the interim, he and his wife were trying to work out the community property division to their mutual satisfaction. By the time he finally responded to her with an agreeable amount, she said she had already hired an attorney and the petition for dissolution of marriage (only) should be arriving shortly. She said her attorney was going to go after the usual, child custody, child support, spousal support, pension fund, etc. Their two children are currently living with him. Since he agreed to pay her the amount she wanted, she says she's going to tell her attorney that the two of them will work out everything and she doesn't need his services anymore.

My question is this. If the petition comes with nothing else attached (all the stuff they were going to file motions for) and it really is just a dissolution of marriage, can he agree to this and then later they can work out child custody and support and all the rest, or would he be better off responding with all the added petitions and motions?

They both just want to get through this quickly and with the least expense but we're not sure if she's going to request custody or not. She agreed to let the girls come with him in the first place and we all agreed to try it out.

Any help with this would be appreciated. I have all the forms ready to fill out depending on what he gets from her attorney. I just need to know the best and easiest way to deal with all this.
:confused:
 


seniorjudge

Senior Member
Q: If the petition comes with nothing else attached (all the stuff they were going to file motions for) and it really is just a dissolution of marriage, can he agree to this and then later they can work out child custody and support and all the rest....

A: No.




You need to hire a lawyer yesterday....
 
If they are now planning on working out everything, what is his next step?

Q #1. Does he go ahead and file a response?

Q #2. Should a notorized Marital Settlement Agreement be attached to the response or can that come later?

He is being served today but we don't have the particulars of the petition yet. I know he has 30 days in which to file a response and since we would like to do it by mail (and acknowledgment of receipt has to be sent back to us before we can file it with the response), time is of the essence.

Q #3. I assume the response has to be served on the other party, along with an acknowledgement of receipt (proof of service), is there anything else we need to send to her?

Thanks,
 

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