The Main Differences Between a Contested Divorce and Uncontested Divorce

Sydney Mitchell:

Hi. My name is Sydney Mitchell.

Matthew Brickman:

Hi, I’m Matthew Brickman, Florida Supreme court mediator. Welcome to the Mediate This! Podcast where we discuss everything mediation and conflict resolution.

Matthew Brickman:
Today I’m gonna answer a question from one of our listeners who wrote in and asked, what are the main differences between a contested divorce and an uncontested divorce? So the easiest way I can answer this is by giving you a definition of what is a uncontested divorce. So in the state of Florida, an uncontested divorce is a type of divorce where the parties have agreed on all issues such as the division of property and debts, uh, whether or not there’s alimony or not, and how much that is. Child’s support, the time sharing, so the parenting plan, and also, um, if there’s going to be responsibility for one party or if both parties are gonna be responsible for their own attorney’s fees. So an uncontested divorce means that they are going in front of the judge and there’s nothing for the judge to decide. So most of the mediations, as far as a mediator, most of the mediations that I do, where there is an agreement that is reached at the end of mediation, those are uncontested divorces because they negotiate everything.

Matthew Brickman:
They sign off on everything. And so there’s simply going in front of the judge then to have the judge ask them a few questions. Usually the questions that are asked are, are you a resident of the state of Florida at least six months? Is this marriage irretrievably broken? Is there anything that this court can do to save this marriage? I see that you’ve entered into your mediation agreement. Do you intend to follow the terms of the mediation agreement? And if the parties say, yes, we are both residents of the state of Florida, there’s nothing left for you to decide this marriage is irretrievably broken, we agree to follow the terms of our agreement, well then that is an uncontested divorce where then the judge will go ahead and divorce the parties. Now contested divorce contested does not mean that the parties were not able to agree on anything contested could be one issue.

Matthew Brickman:
I have done mediations where the parties have agreed to everything except for maybe one, two or three issues. So I’ll give you some examples. Um, I did a mediation recently where the parties agreed to everything except for alimony. So this is now a contested divorce. Now that doesn’t mean that they’re leaving everything up to the judge. They go in front of the judge and they say, your, your Honor, we have been able to take care of everything else, but we have this one issue that we need you to decide. So now it’s not an uncontested divorce, it is a contested divorce. There is something for the court to decide. Um, I’ve done mediations where they’ve agreed on everything equitable distribution of the home and retirement accounts and bank accounts and cars and alimony and attorney’s fees. And the only thing they can’t figure out is the day today time sharing.

Matthew Brickman:
So even with the rest of the parenting plan, they’ve agreed on shared parental responsibility and decision making. They’ve agreed on all the holidays. They just can’t figure out, well, what’s the time sharing on a regular normal day-to-day basis? And this one particular mediation that comes to mind is the father was wanting, uh, 50 50 time sharing. He was wanting a week on week off with his two teenage children. The mother was wanting the father simply to have every other weekend, not even one day during the week, not a dinner during the week, but just every other weekend, which comes to about 30% of the time. Well, that’s a pretty big gap between 30 and 50. Um, and in negotiation or in the mediation we negotiated, tried to negotiate lots of different variances. Maybe there’s more time in the summer, so there’s less time during the school year.

Matthew Brickman:
Maybe he gets an extra weekend if not all the weekends. We tried all different combinations and they just couldn’t come to an agreement. And so they agreed on everything, but they had an UN or they, they had a contested divorce because they were unable to reach a full agreement and needed the court to still decide that one issue. For that particular issue. Their particular case with that particular judge, the judge did award a 50 50 time sharing, but did not do a week on week off. So we call that a 77, but actually did a 2 2 55 schedule, which means that the children were with the mother every single Monday, Tuesday, they were with the father every single Wednesday, Thursday, and then they alternated weekends. So that is an i that is an example of, uh, maybe having a contested issue. Um, I’ve done mediations where they agreed on everything except for the sale of the home.

Matthew Brickman:
One party wants to sell the home and the other party wants to keep the home. And so they took that one issue. So that would be a contested divorce. So to sum up for this listener that, uh, has written in a contested divorce means that you’re unable to come to an agreement and you need the judge to intervene and help decide the issue, whether it is one issue, all the issues. But that means that you, that you haven’t taken control of your life in mediation and created an agreement that you can live with to create an uncontested divorce where there’s nothing for the court to decide except to simply stamp the agreement, make it a judicial order, divorce the parties so they can go on their separate ways and abide by their agreement.

Matthew Brickman:
Occasionally Sydney and I will be releasing Q & A bonus episodes where we will answer questions and give you a personal shout out.

Sydney Mitchell:
If you have a comment or question regarding anything that we discuss, email us at info@ichatmediation.com that’s info@ichatmediation.com and stay tuned to hear your shout out and have your question answered here on the show.

Matthew Brickman:

For more information about my services or to schedule your mediation with me, either in person or using my iChatMediation Virtual Platform built by Cisco Communications. Visit me online at www.iMediateInc.com. Call me at 561-262-9121, Toll-Free at 877-822-1479 or email me at MBrickman@iChatMediation.com.