Texas Divorce and Family Law
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Learn about divorce and family law in Texas. Questions about child custody, division of property, or the divorce process? Find useful information here.
Looking for Texas‘s rules on marriage, divorce, child custody, and child support? Want to find Texas‘s state court forms and instructions and local court websites? Here’s where to start.
Every state has different requirements in terms of how to complete a divorce, but all require a judge to review and approve the divorce settlement or, if the spouses can't agree to a settlement, decide how property will be divided and how parenting time will be shared.
Texas recognizes divorce based on either fault or no-fault grounds.
This article covers the basic issues you'll encounter in a divorce in Texas.
Here are some common questions and answers about divorce in Texas.
The divorce process in Texas starts with the filing of a document entitled "Original Petition for Divorce."
Mediation is a private process in which an impartial person, a mediator encourages and facilitates communications between parties to a conflict and strives to promote reconciliation, settlement, or understanding.
The Texas Family Code requires that both parties sign an Alternative Dispute Resolution clause, which will then be attached to your original pleading.
For divorcing parents, issues of custody are front and center.
In making a child custody or visitation order, Texas courts are guided by the best interests of the child, meaning the court will strive to make an order that best serves the child's physical, mental, and emotional needs.
In Texas, there is a presumption that it is in the best interest of children that parents be appointed as "joint managing conservators."
Parenting plans essentially replace the Standard Possession Order and the terms previously associated with child custody and child visitation in Texas.
A Texas family court would be able to modify a child custody or parental visitation judgment or order either conferring or limiting parental child custody or visitation rights when the circumstances of either the child or the parent affected by the order or judgment have “materially and substantially” changed.
Texas family courts often include a residency restriction in divorce decrees and agreements so that the parent with custodial custody can’t engage in “child relocation.”
All parents, whether they’re married to each other or not, must support their children financially. Every state has its own child support guidelines; these are the starting point for every decision about who will pay child support and how much.
State guidelines are the first place you should look if you want to estimate child support for your family.
In Texas, child support is calculated by multiplying the paying parent's net income by a percentage that is set in the guidelines.
Texas child support laws require the non-custodial parent to pay support based upon their annual earnings.
The Texas Family Code contains guidelines for the computation of child support. The guidelines are specifically designed to apply to situations in which the obligated parent's monthly net resources are $6,000.00 or less.
If you're going through a divorce, you have to make decisions about how to divide the property and the debts.
Texas law defines community property as all of the property that either spouse acquires during the marriage, except separate property.
Alimony, spousal support, and maintenance are all words for the same thing: one spouse paying support to the other after a divorce. It's designed to help a lower-earning spouse--or a spouse who's been out of the workforce entirely while raising children or taking care of the household--to get through the divorce process and transition into being self-supporting.
Texas divorce laws allow for spousal support in certain cases.