A summons and petition for dissolution of marriage on a kitchen counter, keys and phone beside them

Divorce in Colorado, from the day you’re served to the decree.

Three clocks start when you are served: 21 days to respond, 42 days to lay out every account you own, and a court order already in force that says nothing gets moved or signed away. The whole process, in order, and what to do first.

01Four things not to do today
02The calendar
03What the decree decides
04How the case moves
05What to bring
06What people ask first
→Temporary orders
→Mediation and litigation

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Nobody is served at a good time. The case starts anyway, and the first three weeks decide more than most people expect.

The papers arrive at the office, or at the front door, or in a text from your spouse saying they have been filed. From that moment the response is due in twenty-one days, thirty-five if you were served outside Colorado, and the sworn financial statement and disclosures are due within forty-two. An injunction is already in force. Silence can mean a default, and default orders are the hardest kind to undo.

I have run this process for thirty years, first in California and now here. The pattern does not change: the side that is organized by day twenty-one is the side that sets temporary orders, and temporary orders are the status quo the final orders tend to resemble. This page is the process in the order it happens, and what I do at each step.

A man at his front door taking a sealed envelope from a process server at dusk, the neighborhood behind her — Served: the petition, and the calendar it starts

21 days

To respond after service

Thirty-five if you were served outside Colorado. Silence can mean a default, and default orders are the hardest to undo.

42 days

To disclose everything

A sworn financial statement and mandatory disclosures from both spouses under C.R.C.P. 16.2. The initial status conference is set in the same window.

91 days

The earliest a decree can enter

One spouse domiciled in Colorado for 91 days before filing; no decree until 91 days after the court has both spouses. The floor, not the forecast.

Four things not to do today.

Each one is reversible in theory and expensive in practice. All four happen in the first week, usually with good intentions.

Sign or move anything.

The automatic injunction binds you and your spouse from service (C.R.S. § 14-10-107(4)(b)). Property moved to get ahead of the court comes back by order; an agreement signed at the kitchen table is hard to unsign.

Miss day twenty-one.

The response is due 21 days after service, 35 if you were served outside Colorado. Silence can mean a default, and default orders are the hardest to undo.

Move out to keep the peace.

Nobody has to leave when a case is filed. Two months out of the house becomes the status quo the temporary-orders magistrate sees, and it decides the children’s schedule and who keeps the home.

Talk to their lawyer alone.

Anything you agree to now, even by text, shapes temporary orders. Call or text 303-507-5529, or send the note at the bottom of this page, before you answer anyone.

The clocks, in the order they run.

The statute fixes one date: the earliest a decree can enter. Every other deadline comes from the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure and the court’s case management order.

A Colorado district courtroom from the gallery: the judge on the bench, the clerk and the bailiff beside her, both counsel tables occupied — Where temporary orders are set

91 days before filing
Domicile.
One spouse must have been domiciled in Colorado for the ninety-one days before the petition is filed (C.R.S. § 14-10-106(1)(a)(I)).
Day 0
The petition.
Filed in the district court of the county where either spouse lives. Jointly, or by one spouse who then has the other served.
Service
The injunction attaches.
The automatic temporary injunction binds the served spouse from that day (C.R.S. § 14-10-107(4)(b)): no transfers, no hiding assets, no taking the children out of state, no cancelling insurance.
Day 21
The response is due.
Thirty-five days if served outside Colorado. This is the deadline most people are surprised by.
Within 42 days
Disclosure.
Sworn financial statement and mandatory disclosures from both spouses (C.R.C.P. 16.2); the initial status conference is set inside the same window.
Weeks to months
Temporary orders.
Who lives where, who pays what, how the children’s time runs while the case proceeds. The status quo the final orders often resemble.
Day 91
The earliest decree.
No decree until ninety-one days after the court has jurisdiction over both spouses (C.R.S. § 14-10-106(1)(a)(III)). Agreed cases finish on paper soon after.
Months to a year or more
Contested cases.
Mediation, expert reports, a permanent-orders hearing on a district judge’s calendar. The case management order controls the dates.

What the decree decides.

Four things, each with its own statute and its own page. The decree is final on the judge’s signature, and three of the four can be modified later.

Property

Divided as the court finds just.

After weighing each spouse’s contribution, the value of property set apart to each, the economic circumstances at division, and any change in the value of separate property. No presumption of an equal split; separate property stays separate, but its increase in value during the marriage is marital. Property division.

Children

Best interests, decided on facts.

Parental responsibilities allocated by the children’s best interests, and child support from the guideline on both parents’ real income, with sworn financial statements before any support order. Custody · child support.

Maintenance

An advisory guideline, then the facts.

The formula gives the court a starting point that is neither a floor nor a ceiling; the argument is about income and need. Spousal maintenance, with the calculator.

The decree itself

Final on signature. Not always the end.

It can incorporate a separation agreement so the court enforces it by contempt, and it leaves custody, support and maintenance open to later modification. An omitted asset can be reallocated on a motion filed within five years.

How the case actually moves.

Three stages decide most cases, and none of them is the hearing. I treat each one as positioning for the endgame, not paperwork.

A woman in her fifties at her dining table with a year of bank statements in stacks, a calculator, reading glasses and a coffee

Stage one · Disclosure

The case becomes real at disclosure.

The petition starts the case; mandatory financial disclosure makes it real. Colorado’s disclosure rule, C.R.C.P. 16.2, requires a sworn financial statement, mandatory disclosures and supporting documents from both spouses within 42 days of service, not eventually. Incomplete disclosure is a trap for the careless and an opportunity against the evasive: a material asset misstated or omitted can be reallocated on a motion filed within five years of the decree.

What I do

Build your financial statement like testimony, because it is
Read theirs line by line against the bank records
Ask for what is missing in writing, with a date, before the status conference

Stage two · Temporary orders

The first orders set the trajectory.

Who lives where, who pays what, how the children’s time runs while the case proceeds. Temporary orders create the status quo the final orders often resemble, and the months paid under a temporary maintenance order are a factor in the final award. Most people treat this hearing as a formality and start fighting at permanent orders, when the judge has already watched the status quo run for a year.

What I do

Prepare temporary orders as if they were permanent, because they tend to be
Get the record on income and the children’s schedule in before the hearing, not after
Pay what is ordered and fight the amount, never the payment

Two spouses and their lawyers at a mediation table

Stage three · Mediation

Settle from strength.

Many Colorado courts require mediation or another form of dispute resolution before a contested permanent-orders hearing, a requirement that can be waived for good reason such as safety. Most divorces should settle, and the strongest settlements go to the side that is plainly prepared not to. I prepare every case for trial: the record built, the valuations tested, the weak points found first.

What I do

Walk into mediation with the exhibits a judge would see
Price every proposal after tax before anyone says yes
Keep the ability to try the case credible, which is what makes settlement possible

What I tell every client in the first week.

Six things, in the order they come up. They are not legal advice for your case; they are the mistakes I have watched for thirty years.

Across a conference table from her lawyer, a woman listens, a closed folder in front of her, the foothills in the window

Answer by day twenty-one.
Thirty-five if you were served outside Colorado. The response is a short document; the default it prevents is not.
Do not move money.
The injunction is already in force. Ordinary bills and business expenses are fine; a new account, a transfer to a relative or a sale is not.
Stay in the house unless it is unsafe.
Two months out becomes the status quo. If it is unsafe, the court has emergency and protection orders for exactly that.
Write every text as if a judge will read it.
One may. The record you are building right now, in messages to your spouse, is the evidence at temporary orders.
Get organized before disclosure, not after.
Three years of returns, every account, every debt. The side that is complete at day forty-two runs the case.
Do not agree to a number yet.
The first proposal sets the range. A number said out loud at the kitchen table is a number you will be negotiating against for a year.

What to bring, and what to settle first.

Before the first meeting

Bring the record.

The papers you were served, with the date and how you were served
Three years of tax returns, with W-2s, K-1s and 1099s
A list of every account, asset and debt, in either name
Recent pay stubs and any bonus, equity or deferred compensation plan
The children’s school and activity schedule, and who does what today
Any prenuptial or postnuptial agreement
Anything your spouse has already proposed, in writing

Before you respond

Six things settled first.

Whether to file a response, a counter-petition, or both
Who stays in the house, and on what terms, while the case runs
Temporary support and who pays which bills, on the evidence
The children’s interim schedule, in writing
What the injunction lets you keep doing in the business
Whether privacy calls for private mediation or arbitration from the start

Most divorces should settle. The strongest settlements go to the side that is plainly prepared not to.

If you were served this week, talk to me before day twenty-one →

Grounds and dissipation · Uncontested and contested cases · The five-year rule · Legal separation and invalidity

No-fault grounds. Fault still isn’t irrelevant.

The only ground for divorce in Colorado is that the marriage is irretrievably broken (C.R.S. § 14-10-106). No one has to prove wrongdoing, and marital conduct does not decide who gets what. But economic misconduct still counts: dissipation, meaning marital assets spent on an affair, gambled away, or quietly run down in a business during the case, is squarely relevant to how property is divided. Conduct does not matter for the grounds; it can matter a great deal for the money.

Uncontested and contested cases.

An uncontested divorce, where both spouses agree on every term, moves at the speed of the paperwork and can be entered on affidavits without a hearing once the ninety-one days have run. A single disputed term makes the case contested and brings in disclosure, mediation and a hearing date on a district judge’s calendar. In a contested case the court’s case management order controls discovery, disclosure and hearing dates.

The five-year rule.

Disclosure under C.R.C.P. 16.2 is affirmative and continuing. If a material asset or liability is misstated or omitted, the court may reallocate assets and liabilities on a motion filed within five years of the final decree (C.R.C.P. 16.2(e)(10)). It is the reason a division built on incomplete disclosure is not final, and the reason I make sure the other side’s disclosures are actually complete.

Legal separation and invalidity.

A legal separation runs on the same process and produces a decree that divides property and sets support and parenting orders while leaving the marriage in place; either spouse can convert it to a dissolution later. A declaration of invalidity, what other states call annulment, is a different case with its own grounds and time limits. Both have their own pages in this chapter.

Run the numbers

The calculatorsChild support, maintenance, parenting time, duration Parenting-time calculatorCount the overnights before the plan is filed Divorce calculatorBoth support numbers from one entry

What people ask first.

How long will this take?

The legal minimum is 91 days from the day the court has jurisdiction over both spouses. An uncontested case, where every term is agreed, can finish close to that and be entered on affidavits without a hearing. A contested case with a business or significant assets usually takes several months to a year or more, because valuation and disclosure take time to do right. I would rather give you an honest range on your facts than a number that sounds good.

Will we have to go to court?

Probably for little, possibly for nothing. Most cases resolve through negotiation or mediation, and many Colorado courts require mediation before a contested permanent-orders hearing. But the credible ability to try the case is what makes settlement possible on good terms, so I prepare as if we will, in order to make it likely we won’t.

Does it matter that my spouse had an affair?

Not for the divorce itself. Colorado is no-fault: the only ground is that the marriage is irretrievably broken. But if marital money funded the affair, that is dissipation, and it belongs in the property division. The conduct conversation and the money conversation are different conversations.

What is the automatic temporary injunction?

A court order that takes effect on the petitioner when the case is filed and on the other spouse when served. It bars either spouse from transferring, hiding or disposing of property outside the ordinary course of business, harassing the other, taking the children out of state, or cancelling insurance, until the court orders otherwise. Property moved to get ahead of it comes back by order.

Do I have to move out?

No. Nobody has to leave when a case is filed. Two months out of the house becomes the status quo that the temporary-orders magistrate sees, and it decides the children’s schedule and who keeps the home. Talk to me before you move, not after.

Can we do this without lawyers?

Spouses who agree on every term can. The risk is not the paperwork; it is agreeing to a number or a schedule without knowing what the statute would give you. A working session before you sign is the cheapest insurance in this process.

What happens if my spouse hid an asset?

Disclosure under C.R.C.P. 16.2 is mandatory and continuing. If a material asset or liability was misstated or omitted, the court may reallocate on a motion filed within five years of the decree. Hiding assets is not a strategy, and assuming the other side’s disclosures are complete is not one either.

Keep reading

Where to go next.

The next page in this chapter, the pages that belong with it, and the blog posts on the same question.

Next in Chapter IV · The Process & After

Financial Disclosures (Rule 16.2)The 42-day rule, the Sworn Financial Statement, what to gather, the official formsRead it next →

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Previous chapter‹ Postnuptial AgreementsThis chapterChapter IV · The Process & After →

Served this week? Talk to me before day twenty-one.

A consultation is a working session, in person in Greenwood Village or by video: we go through the papers you were served with, the clocks that are running, and I tell you what I would do first. Your note reaches my office directly; during business hours we call you back within the hour, run the conflicts check, and set the meeting.

The fastest thing you can do today

Talk to us about your case.

303-507-5529

Call now →Text us

Rather write? Send a short note and during business hours we call you back within the hour.

A person answersMonday–Friday, 9 to 5No obligation