How long a Pennsylvania divorce takes

Pennsylvania does not publish a statewide average for how long a divorce takes, and any number you see quoted as one is somebody's guess. What the Commonwealth does publish is a set of deadlines, and if you lay them end to end you get a floor that nothing can push below and a set of stages that explain where the rest of the time goes.

The floor is either three months or a year. Everything past that is the money.

How long does a divorce take in Pennsylvania?

There are two clocks and you only run one of them.

If you both consent, the clock is 90 days from the day the action is commenced, under section 3301(c)(1). Add the paperwork that follows and a genuinely agreed Pennsylvania divorce with nothing to divide finishes in roughly four months.

If you do not both consent, the clock is one year of living separate and apart under section 3301(d), and it starts on your separation date rather than on your filing date. That is worth reading twice. You can file the day you separate and spend the year while the case is already open, which is what most Pennsylvania lawyers do.

A fault divorce has no waiting period at all, which sounds fast and is not, because you have to prove the ground at a hearing. The grounds chapter covers what proving one actually involves.

Does the one year clock start when you file?

No. It starts when you stop cohabiting, and section 3103 says cohabitation can stop without either of you moving out.

Filing early is the standard move for exactly this reason. It gets a spousal support or alimony pendente lite claim running, it puts your equitable distribution claim on the record, and the year runs in the background. The one thing it does not do is protect your accounts, which the chapter on financial disclosure and discovery explains.

What are the stages of a Pennsylvania divorce?

• Stage one, the complaint. You file with the prothonotary and serve your spouse. Service has to happen within 30 days if your spouse is in Pennsylvania and 90 days if they are not, under Rule 1930.4(e).

• Stage two, the waiting. Ninety days to consent, or a year apart. Nothing about the divorce itself moves during this period, but the money can: support claims are heard in the domestic relations section on their own schedule, and discovery on the economic claims is available without leave of court.

• Stage three, establishing grounds. Affidavits get signed and filed. Under Rule 1920.42, a consent affidavit has to be signed 90 days or more after service and filed within 30 days of signing.

• Stage four, the paperwork chain. Waivers of notice, or a Notice of Intention to File the Praecipe to Transmit Record followed by a minimum 20 day wait, and then the praecipe itself. If the money is settled the decree comes out here. If it is not, you get an order approving grounds instead and the decree waits.

• Stage five, the economics. Inventory, pre-trial statement, a hearing officer, a report, and 20 days to challenge it.

Why does the money take longer than the divorce in Pennsylvania?

Because it is not allowed to start until the grounds are done. Under Rule 1920.42(a)(3), a party may ask the court to hear the ancillary claims, or to appoint a hearing officer to hear them, only after the court has entered an order approving grounds for divorce. Before that point a hearing officer can be appointed for one narrow purpose, which is helping with discovery or settlement.

So a contested case has a built in sequence. Wait out your clock, establish grounds, get the order approving grounds, then start the argument that was always the real one.

Once you are there, the deadlines stack up:

• The non-moving party files an inventory within 20 days of being served with yours, under Rule 1920.33(a)(1)

• Neither party may move for a hearing officer until 30 days after filing their own inventory

• Pre-trial statements are due at least 60 days before the equitable division hearing, unless the court or the hearing officer sets a different date

• The hearing officer files the report within 20 days in an uncontested matter and 30 days in a contested one, under Rule 1920.55-2(a)

• Either party has 20 days to file exceptions or demand a hearing de novo, depending on which procedure the county uses

None of those is long on its own. Stacked, with scheduling between each one, they are how a contested Pennsylvania divorce turns into a two year project. The contested divorce chapter walks that half of the case in detail.

Can you speed up a Pennsylvania divorce?

Three things actually work.

• Get the divorce before the money is done. Bifurcation under section 3323(c.1) lets the court enter the decree before deciding the economic claims. With both parties consenting, the court needs to find that doing so gives sufficient economic protections for any minor children. Without consent, the moving party also has to show established grounds, compelling circumstances, and sufficient economic protections for the other spouse and the children.

• Waive the notice. If you both sign and file Waivers of Notice of Intention to File the Praecipe to Transmit Record, you skip the 20 day wait built into the paperwork chain. On an agreed case that is three weeks off the calendar for the cost of two signatures.

• Settle in writing before you file the praecipe. Ancillary claims have to be resolved, withdrawn, or never raised before the decree can issue. A signed agreement is what turns a stack of pending claims into a decree, and the uncontested divorce chapter covers what one has to contain.

What does not work is asking a judge to hurry. Neither the 90 days nor the one year can be shortened by anybody.

Are there deadlines the court actually enforces in Pennsylvania?

In custody, yes, and they are unusually strict. Rule 1915.4 requires the parties' first in-person contact with the court within 45 days of filing, requires that trial be scheduled or requested within 180 days or the case may be dismissed, requires trial to commence within 90 days of the scheduling order, and requires the judge's decision within 15 days of the end of trial, with no extension past 45 days.

On the divorce side the deadlines mostly run against you rather than against the court. Miss the 20 days for exceptions and the matters you did not raise are deemed waived. Miss a pre-trial statement item and you can be barred from testifying about it. And under Rule 1920.31(c), failing to claim alimony, alimony pendente lite, counsel fees or costs before the final decree waives them permanently.