How long does a divorce take?

“How long does all this take?” is the question we are asked most often, usually even before the question about the costs. Understandably so: as long as the proceedings are running, much remains in the balance, from the tax class to the question of when your own life will feel normal again.

An honest answer consists of two parts. The first is a range. The second is the explanation of what decides where within that range you end up.

The range: four to twelve months

The count starts when the divorce application reaches the court, not at the first conversation. Before that, the year of separation must as a rule have run its course; that year therefore does not count towards it, even though for those affected it feels like part of the proceedings.

Within the range, proceedings by agreement regularly lie at the lower end. Contested proceedings, in which maintenance, assets or the care of the children are negotiated as well, can stretch over several years. The difference does not arise in the courtroom but before it.

Three levers determine the pace

First: agreement. Every point you settle in advance falls away as a matter in dispute. That not only shortens the proceedings, it also lowers the value in dispute and with it the costs. Where both of you agree, one lawyer representing the applicant is usually enough as well.

Second: the pension rights adjustment. It runs automatically in almost every set of proceedings. Both spouses fill in questionnaires, and the pension providers report back the entitlements acquired. Experience shows that this step slows things down the most, not because it is complicated but because it consists of many individual replies that nobody can speed up.

Third: the court’s workload. Nobody has any influence on that, neither you nor we. And at the moment this third lever makes itself clearly felt.

How things currently look in Frankfurt

The Amtsgericht Frankfurt am Main (local court) is itself currently reporting longer processing times. Registering new proceedings currently takes six to eight weeks. Pending proceedings can be delayed by up to two months. The court expressly asks people to refrain from status enquiries in this phase: every enquiry ties up capacity that is missing elsewhere.

For you that means reckoning with the upper end of the range at the moment. That changes nothing about the legal position, only about the waiting time.

The stations in detail

Behind the range stand six steps, and each has a duration of its own.

Application and service. The application arrives at court, is recorded there and served on the other side. Within Germany that is a matter of weeks. Where the other side lives abroad, it quickly becomes a multiple of that, and it is the most underestimated item of all.

The questionnaires for the pension rights adjustment. The court sends them to both sides. How long they sit there is up to you.

The statements from the pension providers. The longest single item. Every statutory, occupational and private entitlement is queried separately, and the proceedings wait for the last answer to come in. Anyone with many former employers therefore waits longer.

The hearing. Once everything is together, the court sets a date. Here the court’s workload comes through.

The decision. It is usually given at the hearing itself and follows in writing.

Finality. And here lies the lever almost nobody knows about.

Anyone looking at this chain quickly sees where the time actually sits. Two of the six steps depend on you, one on the other side, two on third parties, and only one on the court. The widespread assumption that the court is the bottleneck does not hold in most proceedings.

Waiving appeal saves a whole month

With the decision you are not yet divorced. Only with finality is that the case, and until then the period for an appeal is running.

Where both sides declare at the hearing that they waive their right of appeal, the decision becomes final immediately. Without that declaration the proceedings wait out the period, and a hearing that was over turns into another month of marriage.

It is the cheapest gain of time in the whole procedure. It costs nothing and requires only that both sides are present or represented at the hearing and agree that matters should rest there. In an uncontested divorce that is the normal case, and it is still forgotten where nobody thinks of it beforehand.

With an international element a different calculation applies

Where the other side lives abroad, the timetable shifts at a point you cannot influence: service.

Within the EU it runs under the Service Regulation and is predictable. Outside it goes through the justice authorities of the receiving state, and that route can take months, in individual states longer than all the rest of the proceedings put together.

Where foreign documents with an apostille and a certified translation have to be produced on top of that, the start shifts again. Both can be dealt with alongside the year of separation if started early enough; anyone beginning only after the year of separation loses the time twice over.

What else comes together in such cases is set out under international family law.

What the duration does not depend on

Three things are regularly taken for time factors and are none.

The way advice is given. Whether the first conversation takes place at the office or by video changes nothing about the proceedings; on that, online divorce or in person?.

The location of the firm. Jurisdiction lies with the court under § 122 FamFG, regardless of where your lawyer sits; on that, does my divorce lawyer have to be based in my city?.

The question of fault. German law does not ask who caused the separation. A dispute about it lengthens the proceedings without changing the outcome.

What you can do yourself

At exactly one point the waiting time can be influenced, and that point is regularly underestimated:

• Send the questionnaires for the pension rights adjustment back early and complete. Every query from the pension providers costs weeks that nobody makes up again.
• Collect documents before they are requested: marriage certificate, the children’s birth certificates, proof of income, pension record.
• Clarify contentious points out of court, if need be through a divorce settlement agreement. What is settled beforehand the court no longer has to assess.
• Do not file the application too early. If the year of separation has not yet run at the time of the hearing, the application can be dismissed; then everything starts over.

If you would like to know what that means specifically for your situation, tell us about it. The first consultation costs 190 euros plus VAT and is credited against the final invoice if it leads to a mandate.

Legal notice: This article is provided for general information and does not replace legal advice in an individual case. Any laws, deadlines and amounts mentioned reflect the state of affairs at the time of publication and may change. A binding assessment requires a personal consultation.