Start your divorce online in Georgia

For Georgia courts to have jurisdiction over a divorce case, a couple must meet the state residency requirements.

According to Family Law, either spouse must have been a Georgia resident for at least six months before filing the petition. Thus, non-residents can file for divorce in the county where the non-filing party (who meets the residency requirements) lives. If both spouses are state residents, the Complaint for Divorce must also be filed in the county where the respondent resides.

Georgia Family Law recognizes both no-fault and fault-based grounds for divorce. The only no-fault ground is the Irretrievable breakdown of the marriage.

Georgia fault-based grounds include, but are not limited to, marriage between people too closely related, mental incapacity, impotence, adultery, wife's pregnancy by another man without the husband knowing, willful desertion for at least one year, habitual intoxication or drug addiction, cruel treatment, incurable mental illness, etc.

In Georgia, divorce cases are processed at the Superior Court of an appropriate county.

To initiate a divorce, the petitioner must fill out the Complaint for Divorce and other divorce forms, sign them (in front of a notary if required), and make two sets of copies of all the papers.

The completed forms must then be filed with the Clerk of the Superior Court in the county where either spouse has lived for at least six months or through the court's e-filing system, if it is available in a given county.

When the petitioner files the initial divorce papers with the court, they must pay a mandatory filing fee. In Georgia, it is about $220, varying slightly from county to county (the fee schedule can be found on the website of a Clerk of Superior Court of the relevant county).

However, if the petitioner cannot afford the court fees, they can ask for a fee waiver by filing an Affidavit of Indigency and Eligibility to Proceed In Forma Pauperis.

Unless the respondent agrees to sign an Acknowledgement of Service form before a notary public, the petitioner must serve them with copies of all submitted documents.

However, the petitioner cannot deliver the papers by themselves. Instead, personal service can be accomplished in one of the following ways:

• by the sheriff of the county where the action is filed;
• by any other court-approved process server;
• by publication (if the respondent cannot be found).

Georgia Family Law provides a mandatory waiting period in all divorce cases, regardless of what grounds the spouse files for divorce under and regardless of whether a divorce is contested or not.

The 30-day waiting period begins once the respondent is served with copies of divorce papers. Thus, even an agreed upon divorce cannot be finalized earlier, regardless of how quickly the respondent files an answer to the Complaint for Divorce.

In an uncontested divorce in Georgia, the spouses are not always required to attend a final hearing to finalize a divorce.

The judges still have broad discretion to schedule a hearing, especially if the divorcing spouses have minor children. However, if the spouses do not have kids and want to proceed without holding a hearing, they can file a Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings and ask the court to enter a divorce decree based on the submitted Settlement Agreement.