116 DIVorCe wItH DeCenCY
understand that in both annulment and legal separation cases, the
Family Court can order support, but cannot divide property.
Residency
Marriage is like paying an endless visit in your worst clothes.
—J. B. Priestley
In order to obtain a divorce in any given state, you must be a resi-
dent of that state or physically present there for a specific period
of time. The essential requirement is that for a state court to have
proper jurisdiction to grant you a divorce as one of its residents,
you must have lived in that state for a specific statutory period. In
Hawai‘i, California, and many other jurisdictions, this statutory
residency period is six months. Other, more user-friendly juris-
dictions, such as Nevada, will grant divorces following reduced
residency periods as short as six weeks.
Residency rules. A tricky issue arises as to just what consti-
tutes legal residency. This can hinge on several different factors.
Actual physical presence within the state during every single day
throughout the last six months is definitely not required. What is
required is that the state has been your domicile (i.e., the primary
place that you called home) for the last six months.
Some of these criteria are a bit slippery. Because your domicile
means the place that you “intend” to be your permanent home,
temporary absences do not invalidate your domicile and/or your
right to file a legal action in that state. But, you certainly cannot
just breeze into some new state one day and expect to get divorced
the next. Some factors that indicate the extent of your connections
with a given state are where you file state tax returns, vote, obtain
a driver’s license, own property, or have a bank account. The more
of these sorts of connections you can demonstrate with a given
state, the more likely the state will qualify as your home state for
legal domicile and residency purposes and thereby enable you to
utilize its court system.
A somewhat shorter period of residency is often required for
a separation. In Hawai‘i, for example, the residency period to
qualify for a separation is only three months.