How Long Does it Take for an Uncontested Divorce in South Carolina

This is a hard question to answer because it contains many variables.  But, I can help provide some general guidelines so you can get an idea of how long the typical uncontested divorce takes in South Carolina.Like I mentioned in a previous post, I practice primarily in Greenville County, South Carolina so I can speak more authoritatively on how long it takes in Greenville.  Most other counties will have similar time frames, but they do vary from county to county.This also assumes that your case is truly uncontested, meaning you and your spouse agree that there are no issues for the court to resolve except for actualy divorce (i.e. no property to separate, no children together, or you have reached a written agreement on all of these issues).First, the complaint is prepared by the attorney and filed with the Family Court.  Once the complaint is returned by the Court, it must be served on your spouse.  This can be done in person or by certified mail.  It could also be done by publication, but that complicates things a little for this post.  Look for a post about service by publication coming out soon. It may take a week or two to get the paperwork prepared and ready for service.  Then, depending on the procedure used for serving your spouse, it may take a day or so or possibly weeks.  In many uncontested divorce matters the spouse will come to my office to be served by my paralegal which is much quicker.Once your spouse is served with the paperwork, he or she will have 30 days to answer or they will be considered to be in "default."  If they agree with everything in the complaint, they will be able to sign an answer that says they agree with everything and we can request a hearing.At this point we are at the mercy of the court and we must wait on them to schedule our case on the court docket.  This part could take six weeks or longer to get scheduled.  This time varies widely from county to county depending on the number of family court judges the county has, the time of year, and the number of other cases going on at the time.Once your case is set, we will go to a Final Hearing and you will be divorced.  Typically, a truly uncontested case where everyone agrees and works together takes about three months.  I have seen them happen faster, and I have seen them take much longer.  I hope this helps give you an idea of how long your case might take.