What Happens If A Court Does Not Accept Our Divorce Documents?

Uncontested Divorce Mediation

Posted January 4, 2019

Divorce is one of the most difficult processes you can go through, next to getting married in the first place. There is a great deal of stress involved, and the more intertwined your and your partner’s lives have become, the more difficult they are to separate. However, even under ideal circumstances, reaching an uncontested divorce in Denver (where you both want to get a divorce, you can agree to terms, you don’t have minor children or a business with assets to split between you, etc.) there are still hurdles that you will have to contend with. Such as when the court doesn’t accept your divorce documents as you’ve presented them.

That’s when you should go to divorce mediation in Denver.

A Process For Ensuring Everything Is Properly Handled

It is totally possible to get your divorce right on your own. If you and your spouse can sit down, and hash out an agreement that is fair and equitable, with all the t’s crossed and all the i’s dotted, then you may even be able to proceed to the final stages of your uncontested divorce without even getting a hearing (depending on the state/local laws where you live and how they handle divorce), much less going through a drawn out divorce court case.

Just because something is possible, though, doesn’t mean that it is the norm. And if there are any issues with your divorce documents, or the court feels there are still some wrinkles left in them after they’ve been reviewed, that’s when you and your spouse may find yourselves in need of divorce mediation in Denver in order to proceed.

What is divorce mediation?

Well, in the simplest possible terms divorce mediation in Denver is when you and your spouse sit down with a neutral third party who walks you through the procedure, explains everything you need to have handled in order for the court to accept your documents, and handles the paperwork once the two of you have reached the necessary agreements and gotten everything put into writing. A mediator is more costly than just filling out the paperwork yourself, but significantly less costly than both parties hiring divorce lawyers in order to hash out the details. However, even if you do have lawyers acting to protect each of your best interests, you can still go through the mediation process. It just adds a third party outside of your lawyers to act as a kind of referee and witness to what’s happening. Which, in many cases, can be exactly what you and your spouse need to come to terms.

Misconceptions About Mediation

If you find yourself going through divorce mediation in Denver (either because the court wouldn’t accept your documents, or as a preventative measure to make sure everything is in order before you even go to the court), you need to make sure you go in armed with the proper knowledge of what mediation is, and what it isn’t.

First of all, a mediator is not someone who is there to judge you, or to order you around. Your mediator cannot make you do anything; their whole job is to assist you in getting your divorce finished yourself. Think of them as a tutor; they’re there to tell you how to complete this difficult task, but they cannot actually make you do it. You have to meet them halfway, and follow the guidance they offer. Your mediator cannot order you to do something the way a judge could, for example.

Secondly, divorce mediation is not court-ordered counseling. The goal of mediation is not to help couples reconcile their differences or withdraw their divorce. The goal is to help the couple get through the process to find an equitable, legally acceptable end. If a couple happens to reconcile some differences, or to come to an understanding, that can be seen as a positive side effect of the process rather than the end goal of mediation.

Thirdly, mediation does not involve you giving up things you would be able to fight for in court. In fact, according to Men’s Divorce, the terms settled on in mediation tend to be fairer, overall, than what would be achieved in divorce court proceedings. Additionally, while some spouses might feel that complicated issues can only be solved in court, mediation is often a better place to talk through the ins and outs of things like mutual business holdings, issues for the children, etc. While these things can be solved in divorce court, it’s often a better idea to try to solve them in mediation if that’s at all possible to do.

What Happens After Mediation?

When you and your spouse go through mediation, you’re essentially working out your uncontested divorce with a little bit of supervision. Once you’ve both agreed to the terms, and signed all the paperwork, it’s the mediator’s job to submit your new documents to the court to ensure things get properly finalized.

This step brings you back to where you were previously, with your documents now being submitted to the court. However, with your mediator signing off on the documents it’s very likely that you’ll be able to proceed without further hearings, and certainly without the necessity of going to divorce court. While mediation may not be easy (as almost nothing is ever truly easy when it comes to getting divorced), it is often less expensive, it helps ensure that you have documents that will be accepted by the court, and it lets you and your erstwhile spouse take that next step to move on with your lives.

Divorce is a difficult thing to go through, even under the best of circumstances. With so much misinformation out there, it’s important to make sure you have experts who are going to answer your questions, and help you get the results you’re looking for. If you need to know more about divorce mediation in Denver, or any other aspect of the divorce process, then contact Split Simple today. Divorce is hard enough as it is, so let us make it a little bit easier for you.

Split Simple

1624 Market Street #202

Denver, CO 80202

720-501-4600