Serving Divorce Papers to a Spouse You Cannot Locate

Many people when seeking a divorce remain confused as to the steps they can take if they cannot locate their spouse to serve divorce papers.

It is important to understand that there is a system in place for such a situation. If you seek to divorce your spouse and cannot locate him/her, you can get permission from the court to publish a notice of the divorce in the newspaper. You can also post a notice in the courthouse. This step is called a Motion to Serve by Publication or Posting.

There are situations where this particular motion is allowed by court. These include a genuine situation where you have made sufficient efforts to find your spouse but have failed to do. In other words, you cannot just claim that you cannot locate your spouse. You have to try to find them. A judge will not grant you permission to publish such a notice if you are unable to convince them. You can do so by outlining the steps you took and the responses you received in the process. You must keep record of the places you tried to contact your spouse and all other attempts you made to communicate with them. Save any papers or documents that seem relevant to this issue or any returned mail that shows that it was undeliverable.

You can tell the judge the last time you saw your spouse and the location of that meeting; you can try to contact them at the last known address that is available to you; you can call your spouse’s employer if you have that information; you can contact their family members if you know any; you can check the telephone book; you can search on the Internet; you can ask the court to check their criminal record; you can check with the Department of Motor Vehicles; you can check the Federal Bureau of Prisons website; you can check hospitals and homeless shelters. All these measures should ideally result in success but if not, you can clearly show you made the effort.

The law grants you sixty days from the day you file to serve the papers to your spouse. If you cannot do so within that time, you can go back to the court before the sixty days are up and get an additional sixty days. Any request for more time after this has to be approved by a judge. It is important to remember that if these steps are not followed, then the judge may not approve your request.