Divorce in Bexar County

Step 1. Preparing and Filing the Initial Paperwork

• Collect and fill out all the forms relevant to your case. At minimum, you will need an Original Petition for Divorce, a Civil Case Information Sheet, and some additional forms concerning children if involved. The Petition asks the court for divorce, provides essential information about you, your spouse, your property, and your minor children, if any, and requests the final orders.
• Divorce forms must be completed neatly and accurately, with no mistakes, corrections, or smudges, presenting only truthful information. Your requests must be clear and exact. Mind that some divorce forms in Bexar County must be signed before a notary public.
• Make 2 copies of each document and bring 3 sets of divorce papers to the District Clerk’s Civil Filing Department. The clerk will assign your case a cause number and a court number and time-stamp the documents. The original will be left with the court, and the copies will be returned for you and your spouse.
• You must pay a Bexar County divorce filing fee of $401 if you have children or $350 if not. If you have a low income and cannot afford court fees, you may complete and file a Statement of Inability to Afford Payment of Court Costs to waive them.

Step 2. Serving the Other Party

• You must officially notify the other party about the initiated divorce process by serving them with the Petition and other papers. Since you cannot do this yourself in Texas, you should hire a sheriff, constable, or private process server to hand-deliver the paperwork. Your spouse will have 20 days to sign a Respondent’s Original Answer and file it with the court.
• The respondent can sign a Waiver of Service before a notary public if they agree to all the terms you indicated in your Petition, in which case you will not need to serve them with the papers. The Waiver cannot be signed sooner than 24 hours after you filed the Petition with the court.

Step 3. Finalizing the Divorce

• Texas divorce laws impose a mandatory 60-day waiting period after the Petition is filed with the court, so the process cannot be finalized sooner than this time expires. However, the waiting period can be waived if you have an active protective or magistrate’s order due to family violence or if your spouse is convicted of a crime that involves family violence.
• During the 60-day waiting period, complete the Final Decree of Divorce and Interrogatories in Support of Final Decree and have them signed by your spouse. Make sure that the papers are filled out completely and accurately.
• Take the final paperwork to the hearing for the judge to review and sign it. After you file the signed Decree with the clerk, your divorce will be finalized.

Now you know how to file an uncontested divorce in Bexar County. We deliberately omitted the steps typical for contested cases since we hope you managed to agree with your spouse and can undergo a simplified process.