Filing For Divorce in Colorado

1. What are the residency requirements for filing for divorce in Colorado?  
You or your spouse must be a resident of the state for at least 90 days before filing for divorce.  

2. Does Colorado have a waiting period?       
Yes, the court will not grant a divorce until at least 90 days after you file.  

3. Does the state have grounds for divorce?  
In Colorado, there is no list of actions or issues that could be grounds for divorce. Rather, the court must find that your marriage is irretrievably broken — meaning there’s no hope of reconciliation.  

If you and your spouse both tell the court by petition or under oath that you agree that your marriage is irretrievably broken, or one of you states this and the other doesn’t deny it, the court will find that your marriage is irretrievably broken — as long as there isn’t any evidence to contradict that.  

If one of you denies under oath that your marriage is irretrievably broken, the court will look at your case and either decide that it is, or schedule a hearing on the matter between 30 and 60 days later. You may be required to attend counseling during this time.  

4. How does Colorado determine the division of property?    
You and your spouse are encouraged to come up with a settlement on your own and present it to the court. If you can’t agree, the court will divide your property for you based on what is “equitable,” or fair.  

The court looks at your marital property, which is anything you or your spouse acquired after you were married except:

• Property you acquired by gift or inheritance
• Property you received in exchange for property that you acquired before you were married or that you acquired by gift or inheritance
• Property you acquired after legally separating
• Property you and your spouse agree to leave out of the discussion  

Anything else is marital property, even if you hold the title individually. And if your separate property — property that you acquired before you were married — increased in value from the date of your marriage, that increase in value also is marital property.  

When considering how to divide things between you and your spouse, the court will take into account the following:

• You and your spouse’s contributions toward acquiring your marital property, including whether one of you contributed as a homemaker.
• The value of your individual property.
• You and your spouse’s economic circumstances, including whether your home or the right to live in your home should be awarded to the parent with whom your child.
• Will live most of the time.
• Any increase or decrease in the value of your separate property while you were married, or whether you used your separate property for your marriage.  

5. Does Colorado require mediation before a divorce is granted?  
If reconciliation seems possible, or if you and your spouse do not agree that the marriage is irretrievably broken, then the court may order a counseling period between 30 to 60 days after you file. If you have children younger than 18, the court may order you to attend a program on the effects of separation and divorce on children.  

Mediation also may be ordered to resolve any parenting issues such as custody, visitation and support.