Well, if you’re looking at this, you’reprobablyconsidering a divorce. The good news is that Texas has a pretty good family law system in terms the applicable law and the Courts. The bad news is that a contentious divorceis financially ill-advised forthe majorityof the population.
As of 2017, the poverty rate for Houstonians was 21.2%, compared to 13.4% as the national average and roughly a 1/3 of children in Houston across all age groups lived in poverty (https://www.welfareinfo.org/poverty-rate/texas/houston). Given those statistic, how many Houstonianscantrulyafford for each spouse to spend $10,000.00or moreon their divorce? A 2016 survey determined that only 15% of adults in the United States have $10,000.00or morein savings (https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/19/heres-how-many-americans-have-nothing-at-all-in-savings.html).
This means that Americans in general are not able to afford acontestedorevenpartially contesteddivorce without relying upon credit cards, personal loans, or loans from family members. Making matters worsethere is a correlation between a lower income and a higher divorce rate. For people in the top 1/3income bracket, 64% are still married to their first spouse, butindividuals in the lower 1/3 income bracketis only 24%are still married to their first spouse(https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-us-divorce-rate-has-hit-a-50-year-low).
If you do not have children and do not own property, then there is not anything to argue about in your divorce. However, just because there is nothingto argueabout does not mean that a spouse will not resist the divorce in some fashionor otherwise seek to make the process long, expensive, and unpleasant. Divorces are personal after all.
Please note, the familycourt does not have the power to re-assign any debts; the debts each spouse has contracted for during the marriage will continue to exist based on those contractual relationships with creditors.Creditors do not care and are not bound by your divorce decree. Just because the decree says the husband or wife shall pay does not mean that they will. When they do not, the creditor will collect from the person they contracted with.
So,for those without children and without property, the process can be dramatically more affordable. For those pursuing a divorce without children, but involving property, the issue then becomes how much property is subject to division in the divorce and therefore how much of the marital property is worth cannibalizing in legalfees in an effort to obtain more of the marital estate.Make sure the amount you stand to gain is more than your legal feeswill be.