How long will the Divorce take?

If you are getting divorced, or recently filed, you may wonder how long it is going to take to get your divorce. In Pennsylvania, there are two no-fault grounds for divorce which is the vast majority of divorces even if you think you have been wronged. If you are already separated for two years when you file for divorce and have no assets to divide and no alimony issues, it can take as little as two months to get divorced. If you have no assets and no alimony issues but have not been separated for two years, there is a mandatory 90 day cooling off period. In those cases, you can expect your divorce to take about four to five months.

When you do have issues, either alimony or division of assets, it is much more difficult to predict how long it will take. One of the reasons it becomes much harder to predict is that you cannot get divorced until you know what the assets are which is accomplished during discovery. If your spouse is non-cooperative and does not provide the necessary information, you may spend a considerable amount of time in and out of court attempting to get this information. If you spouse does not consent to the divorce, you could be waiting at a minimum two years before you can even get grounds for divorcee which you need before you get divorced.

If your spouse is cooperative and you have assets and alimony issues but you are able to come to an agreement at the beginning, the timing would be about the same as if you had no issues, two months if separated two years already and four to five months if you recently separated.