The contested divorce process in Arizona can take anywhere between one and two years or more to complete, and that has everything to do with the fact that spouses do not agree on key tenets of the divorce, such as child custody, child support payment amounts, spousal support payment amounts, and how both the assets and debt(s) should be split up in the divorce.
What Causes the Slow-Down in Contested Divorce in Arizona?
When your Arizona divorce is contested, as with all other types of divorce, the very first step is to petition for divorce, and then your spouse, usually with the help of his or her Phoenix divorce attorney, will draft a written response to the petition for divorce — legally, the response to the Arizona divorce petition must be completed and submitted within 30 days of the submission of the divorce petition.
Discovery: The Second Step of Divorce, Where the Process Often Stalls
In the next step of the Arizona divorce process, known as discovery, the Phoenix divorce lawyers on both sides of the process will convene to go over and verify the sum total of the jointly held assets, debts, and yearly income of the spouses combined — this collection of financial data allows the divorce lawyers to best determine who will be given which assets, who will be assigned what debt(s), and who, if either of the spouses, will be required to pay spousal support, and how much that support will amount to.
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