How to file for divorce in Pennsylvania, step by step

Filing a divorce in Pennsylvania is a paper exercise, and the state gives you the paper. The Unified Judicial System publishes fillable form sets for all three no-fault routes, the rules spell out exactly what the complaint has to say, and there is no judge to persuade at this stage.

What you cannot get back is a claim you forgot to raise. That is the part of the filing worth slowing down for.

How do you file for divorce in Pennsylvania?

Six steps.

1. Confirm you can file here. One of you needs six months in Pennsylvania, and you file in a county where one of you lives or that you both agree on. The residency chapter covers both rules.

2. Pick your ground. Mutual consent, one year of separation, or fault. That choice determines which form set you download.

3. Fill out the complaint. Rule 1920.12 lists everything it has to contain, and the form set has it built in.

4. Raise every claim you want. Equitable distribution, alimony, counsel fees, custody. Leaving one out is expensive in a way the rest of this page explains.

5. File with the prothonotary in the county courthouse, and pay that county's fee.

6. Serve your spouse within 30 days, or 90 if they live outside Pennsylvania.

Nothing here needs a hearing. Rule 1920.3 says an action is commenced by filing a complaint with the prothonotary, and that is the whole of it.

What forms do you need to file for divorce in Pennsylvania?

The courts publish three complete sets on the Unified Judicial System's divorce page, one for each no-fault route, and the instructions tell you to print each form and take it to the designated office in your county courthouse.

The mutual consent set under section 3301(c)(1) contains:

• Self Represented Party Entry of Appearance

• Notice to Defend and Divorce Complaint

• Praecipe to Reinstate the Complaint, with instructions

• Affidavit of Consent

• 3301(c)(1) Counter-Affidavit

• Waiver of Notice, and a Notice of Intention to File the Praecipe to Transmit Record

• Affidavit of Non-Military Service

• Certificate of Service

• Final Praecipe to Transmit Record, and the Divorce Decree

• Notice of Intention to Resume Prior Surname

The one year separation set under section 3301(d) is nearly identical, with an Affidavit and Counter-Affidavit under section 3301(d) in place of the Affidavit of Consent. The presumed consent set under section 3301(c)(2) adds an Affidavit to Establish Presumption of Consent, which also lists the personal injury crimes that trigger it.

There is a warning stamped on all of it worth taking seriously. The court's page says self-represented litigants are held to the same standards as attorneys admitted to the bar, and representing yourself does not exempt you from following statewide and local rules of court.

Does Pennsylvania have county-specific divorce forms?

Sometimes, and the state's own page tells you to check. Local rules add cover sheets, confidential information forms and filing procedures that vary by judicial district, and the prothonotary's office is the place to ask.

The statewide forms are accepted everywhere. The county paperwork sits on top of them.

What does a Pennsylvania divorce complaint have to say?

Rule 1920.12(a) lists nine items:

1. The names of the plaintiff and defendant, plus a guardian's name and address if either party is a minor or incompetent

2. The residence of the plaintiff

3. The last known residence and present whereabouts of the defendant, or, if you do not know, the names and addresses of near relatives and others likely to know

4. An averment that the plaintiff, the defendant or both have resided in Pennsylvania for at least six months immediately previous to the commencement of the action

5. The date and place of the marriage

6. The ground the action is based on, stated substantially in the language of the Divorce Code

7. Any prior divorce or annulment action between you, in this or any other jurisdiction, with its caption, court, term and number, the date it was commenced, its grounds, and its status or disposition

8. In a case brought on indignities, mutual consent or irretrievable breakdown, an averment that you have been advised counseling is available and that you may ask the court to require the parties to participate in it

9. A prayer for relief

Every complaint also has to begin with the notice in Rule 1920.71, which is the block telling your spouse they have twenty days and should get a lawyer.

Which claims should you raise in a Pennsylvania divorce complaint?

Every one you might want, because some of them die with the decree.

Rule 1920.31(c) is blunt about it. Failure to claim spousal support, alimony, alimony pendente lite, counsel fees, or costs and expenses before the entry of a final decree is a waiver of those claims unless the court expressly says otherwise in the decree. There is no motion to reopen and no equitable exception. Child support is the one carve out: not claiming it does not bar a separate action later, and neither does custody.

The equitable distribution claim works the same way in practice. Under section 3323(b), the decree disposes of the property rights raised in the pleadings, and once it is entered the marriage is over and with it the claim.

Two claims do not belong in the complaint at all. Under Rule 1920.31(a)(2), child support, spousal support and alimony pendente lite may not be counts in a divorce complaint. They are filed as separate actions in the domestic relations section, which the spousal support chapter walks through. Alimony, which only exists after a decree, does go in the divorce.

Do you have to file financial documents when you file?

Not with the complaint, but soon after, and the trigger is the claim rather than the calendar.

Raise a claim for alimony, counsel fees, or costs and expenses, and Rule 1920.31(a)(1) requires you to file a true copy of your most recent federal income tax return, pay stubs for the preceding six months, an Income Statement and an Expense Statement. You cannot move for a hearing officer or ask the court to act on those claims until 30 days after you file them, and your spouse has 20 days from being served with yours to file their own.

Raise a claim for equitable distribution and Rule 1920.33(a) requires an inventory on the same pattern. The disclosure chapter covers what goes in it.

Can your spouse ignore a Pennsylvania divorce complaint?

They can ignore the notice to defend, and it will not get them a default. Rule 1920.41 says no judgment in a divorce action may be entered by default or on the pleadings, which puts Pennsylvania in a different position from most states.

Silence still costs your spouse. On the one year separation route, the affidavit's averments are deemed admitted unless the counter-affidavit denies them, so a spouse who does nothing hands you the date of separation and the breakdown. What silence cannot do is hand you a divorce with no affidavit at all, which is why the decree chapter matters even when your spouse has vanished.