How to File for Divorce if You Can't Find Your Spouse

How to File for Divorce if You Can't Find Your Spouse

Can I file for a divorce in Florida if I can't find my spouse? The answer is yes you can. Filing for the divorce is the easy part. If you can't find your spouse, the hard part is getting the paperwork to your spouse. And so there is a mechanism in place in Florida to address issues precisely like that. There's two things that you'll need to do and the first is you have to make a diligent inquiry to try to find your spouse. Now we'll usually use a process server or we'll use an investigator. And what that process server or investigator will do is they will look up the last known address of your spouse. They will do a record search for your spouse and sometimes check utility records for your spouse to see if they can find their addresses. The second thing that you'll need to do is publish by notification in the newspaper in the place that your spouse last lived that you have a divorce action pending. So if you live in Tampa and you know that your spouse had moved out of your marital home and was staying in Orlando for a period of time and now you don't know where your spouse is, you would go to an Orlando newspaper and have the Orlando newspaper for a period of four weeks publish something on Sunday or Saturday that gave notice that to your ex-spouse that a lawsuit was pending. Once those two things are completed then you can go in front of a judge to hear your divorce case and say Judge I did what I could. I still can't find my spouse. So will you please grant me the divorce and give me a default judgment.