“Grounds” are legally acceptable reasons for a divorce. In New York, there are two “no-fault” divorce grounds and several fault-based divorce grounds.

No-fault grounds: In New York, you can file for a no-fault divorce for either of these reasons:

1. Breakdown of the marriage – You can get a “no-fault” divorce if, according to either party, the marriage has “broken down irretrievably” for a period of at least six months. You do not have to be separated for six months; you just have to allege that the marriage has been completely broken down for at least the past six months. In other states, the common term used for this is “irreconcilable differences.” 

A judgment of divorce will not be granted under this ground until the following issues are agreed upon by the parties or decided by the judge:

• division of marital property (“equitable distribution”);
• the amount of spousal support, if any;
• the amount of child support, if applicable;
• how to divide any payments owed for attorney fees, experts’ fees, and expenses; and
• the custody and visitation of any minor children of the marriage.¹

2. Divorce after a legal separation agreement – To file for divorce based on this ground, there are two requirements:

1. Either of the following must be true:
   
   • you and your spouse filed a valid separation agreement that you both agreed to; or
   • one spouse filed for a court-ordered judicial separation; and

2. You and your spouse have lived separate and apart for at least one year after the agreement or judicial order.³ 

If you and your spouse decide to sign a separation agreement, it is recommended that you get an attorney to write it up because there are requirements that it must meet to be acceptable (valid). This includes very specific legal language as well as that it be signed in front of a notary and filed properly in court. If the judge decides that the agreement is not “valid,” it cannot be used as the grounds for your divorce. However, you may still be able to file for divorce on another ground. You could discuss this option with an attorney if you are worried about being in this situation.

Fault-based grounds: In New York, you can file for a fault-based divorce for any of these reasons:

1. Cruel and inhuman treatment – This includes physical, verbal, or emotional abuse that endangers your physical or mental well-being to the point that it is “unsafe or improper” for you to live with the abuser.
2. Abandonment – Your spouse must have abandoned you for a period of at least one year. Specific examples of abandonment by your spouse include a physical move from the home or locking you out of the home. Also, if your spouse has refused to engage in sexual relations with you for at least one year, this is known as “constructive abandonment” and can also qualify you to file under this ground.
3. Imprisonment for three consecutive years – Your spouse must have been in prison for three or more years in a row but the sentence must have begun after your marriage.
4. Adultery – You must be able to show that your spouse committed adultery during the marriage. This is usually hard to prove in court, since you need evidence from someone other than you or your spouse (a “third party”).²

Note: You cannot file for divorce based on “cruel and inhuman treatment” or “imprisonment for three consecutive years” if the events that created the ground happened more than five years before your divorce case is filed.⁴  

¹ N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law § 170(7)
² N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law § 170(1)-(4)
³ N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law § 170(5), (6)
⁴ N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law § 210(a)

Once you are in the process of a divorce, support is referred to as maintenance, spousal support, or alimony. If you are getting separated or divorced, the supreme court can award you temporary maintenance, which lasts while the divorce case is going on, and post-divorce maintenance, which applies once the divorce is finalized. For temporary maintenance and post-divorce maintenance, there are specific guidelines and a mathematical formula that determines how much you can get. The New York Courts website has an online calculator to help you figure out what you may be entitled to in temporary maintenance and a calculator to help you figure out what you may be entitled to in post-divorce maintenance. However, for both temporary and post-divorce maintenance, the judge can vary from the formulate if s/he determines that the guideline amount of maintenance is unjust or inappropriate.¹

Note: Even prior to filing for a divorce, you may be able to file for spousal support in family court while still married to your spouse.² To read the relevant law, go to our Selected New York Statutes page and read Family Court Act § 412.

¹ NY Dom Rel Law § 236; 236(5-a)(h) ,(6)(c), (6)(e)
² NY Fam Court Act § 412

The court will determine how much money the other parent will pay to support your child. To read more about getting a child support order and modifying a child support order, go to our NY Child Support section.

To learn more about making divorce easier for your children, you can visit The New York State Parent Education and Awareness Program’s Handbook. You can also check out the NY Courts website for more divorce information, including an informational video, divorce forms and a glossary of legal terms. You will find more information about divorce, including the risks of taking your children out of state while a divorce is pending, on our general Divorce page. To watch brief videos about divorce in Spanish with English sub-titles, go to our Videos page. Lastly, learn more about the court process on our Preparing for Court – By Yourself page.

You will find more information about divorce, including the risks of taking your children out of state while a divorce is pending, on our general Divorce page. To watch brief videos about divorce in Spanish with English sub-titles, go to our Videos page. Lastly, learn more about the court process on our Preparing for Court – By Yourself page.

A contested divorce is when your spouse disagrees with anything in the case, including the divorce itself, the property division, child custody, or financial support. A contested divorce is more complicated than an uncontested divorce. It is always best to have an attorney assist you with a contested divorce.

The NY Courts website lists a schedule of fees for initial divorce filings in on page 5 of their divorce packet.  For an uncontested divorce, the inital court filings may represent the majority of the cost.  However, for contested divorces, where motions are commonly filed, experts may be ordered to do evaluations, and a lawyer is usually required, the costs can increase greatly.

If you cannot afford the filing fees, you may file an application to proceed as a poor person.  Here, for example, is an affidavit that would be filed when asking to have the fees waived (in other words, to “proceed as a poor person.”)  The clerk’s office can tell you exactly what forms to file.  If you qualify, you will not have to pay the fees.

Attorneys usually charge an hourly rate, ranging from $175 to $450 or possibly even more, depending on experience. They usually require an advance retainer, which is an initial deposit against which you are billed.  You might be able to get an attorney for no cost through our NY Finding a Lawyer page or, if you are low-income, you may be able to get an attorney appointed for you by the court to handle custody and visitation matters.¹

However, if you cannot afford to pay for an attorney, there is a law that may help if your spouse earns/has more money than you do. The law says that the judge can order the spouse who has more money to pay the lower-income spouse’s attorney’s fees and the fees and expenses of experts (such as a forensic psychologist) if this is necessary for you to be adequately represented in the divorce.  The judge will assume that the richer spouse should pay the poorer spouse’s attorney fees although the richer spouse can try to change the judge’s mind and offer evidence to show why this should not be done.  The money would be paid during the divorce (not at the end) to your attorney directly.²  This law also applies to a court case you may have to later bring to enforce any part of the divorce or custody order that the other spouse is violating.³

¹ NY Judiciary Law § 35(8)
² NY Dom. Rel. Law § 237(a)
³ NY Dom. Rel. Law § 237(b)

Step 1: Grounds
You must first have a legally acceptable reason (grounds) to ask for a divorce. For more information, please see What are the grounds for divorce?

Step 2: Fill out and file the proper forms and pay the fee
For an uncontested divorce, you will need the Uniform Uncontested Divorce Packet. There are links to these forms on our Download Court Forms page. There are also more instructions on the NY State Courts website. Many of the forms can be very complicated, however, and we suggest having the help of an attorney. If you are filling out forms on your own, you can ask the court to keep your address confidential if your spouse has abused you. Be sure to ask the clerk for help with this, and do not put your address on any of these forms. If you expect or know that the divorce is going to be contested, an attorney is especially important to make sure that your legal rights are protected.

You will also have to pay certain fees to file for the divorce. If you cannot afford it, you can ask the clerk for an Application for Fee Waiver. This is also called “poor person’s relief,” and, if you qualify, you may not have to pay the fees.

Step 3: Service of Process
Your spouse must be personally served with a copy of all the necessary papers.  Be sure to clarify with the clerk what exactly needs to be served upon your spouse. There are also specific requirements for who can serve the papers. This means that a person other than you, who is a New York resident, age 18 or older, must personally give your spouse the papers. The server may be a friend, family member, or professional process server. Summonses may be served Mondays through Saturdays, but there is no service of process on Sundays.

If your spouse lives in another state, you will need to follow the rules of that state for service to be valid. Call the local sheriff to find out how to have the papers served in that state.

You can find more information about service of process in our Preparing for Court – By Yourself section, in the question called What is service of process and how do I accomplish it?

Step 4: In an uncontested divorce, you may receive the Affirmation of Defendant (Form UD-7)
What happens next depends on whether your spouse agrees to the divorce and is willing to cooperate.

• If your spouse agrees to the divorce, they need to sign the Affirmation of Defendant (Form UD-7) and return it to you. If they do this, you can proceed immediately to Step 5 below to place the case upon the court’s calendar without any additional waiting period.
• If your spouse will not complete and return the Affirmation of Defendant, then whoever served them with the papers must prepare an Affirmation of Service (Form UD-3), proving that your spouse received copies of the divorce paperwork. If you were married in a religious ceremony, you must also fill out a copy of the Sworn Statement of Removal of Barriers to Remarriage (Form UD-4) and someone other than you, over the age of 18, must send a copy of it to your spouse either by personal service along with the Summons With Notice or the Summons and Verified Complaint, or by mail. Check with the clerk to see what other forms, if any, also need to be mailed to your spouse.
• If your spouse files a Notice of Appearance disagreeing with anything in the papers, then this is no longer an uncontested divorce, and instead it will be considered contested. You may want to consult an attorney immediately if this happens.

Step 5: Place your divorce case on the court calendar, possibly appear in court multiple times, and get the judgment for divorce
The forms that you need to file to get your divorce on the court’s calendar and in front of a judge will be different depending on whether your spouse signed the Affirmation of Defendant (Form UD-7) or a Notice of Appearance. Multiple forms need to be filed, and we suggest having the help of an attorney to make sure everything is done properly.

The time it takes to get the judgment of divorce will be different if you are filing an uncontested or contested divorce. For contested divorces, there will be multiple court appearances, hearings, and possibly a trial, which could all take many months or even years. For uncontested divorces, you can be granted a judgment of divorce without appearing in court. However, there could still be a significant wait depending on how busy the court’s calendar is. If your spouse returned a signed Affirmation of Defendant, you can file your papers immediately to place the uncontested divorce on the court’s calendar. If your spouse does not respond to the papers you served on them (defaults), you must wait 40 days to file the papers and place the case on the court’s calendar.

Note: If you are served with divorce papers by your spouse but you do not agree with the terms that your spouse is asking for in the divorce, you can contest the divorce by filing a Notice of Appearance in court within 20 days of being served with the divorce papers or by hiring a lawyer to do so for you. The Notice of Appearance tells the court that you plan to participate in the divorce proceedings.¹

¹ Much of this information was adapted from the NY Courts website divorce packet. Please read the packet for additional information.

When you serve your spouse with the divorce summons, you will also have to include a copy of certain “automatic orders,” which are binding upon the defendant immediately upon serving him/her with them. The orders are also binding on you as well when you file the summons. The automatic orders remain in effect during the entire divorce proceeding unless terminated or changed by the judge. The automatic orders include, for example, that neither spouse can hide, transfer or get rid of any property, money, or other assets that are either individual or joint property without the other spouse’s consent. The only exception to this is if those types of actions are taken “in the usual course of business,” for usual household expenses, or for reasonable attorney’s fees in connection with the divorce.¹ Another automatic order says that neither spouse can remove the other spouse or children from any existing medical, hospital and dental insurance coverage.² There are many other automatic orders – to read all of them, please go to our Selected NY Statutes page.

¹ NY Dom Rel § 236(Part B)(2)(b)(1)
² NY Dom Rel § 236(Part B)(2)(b)(4)