Trying to get a West Virginia divorce when the other spouse is in jail is something that happens from time to time. The question at that time becomes, how do I get a divorce? The rules are largely the same when it comes to getting a divorce, but some differences apply when a person is incarcerated. One thing that you have to worry about is getting the person served. Generally what happens is the person has to be appointed what we call a guardian ad litem. The person in jail would get an attorney appointed to represent their interest.
They will be there to receive a copy of the petition. The guardian ad litem can accept the petition on the behalf of the person that happens to be in jail. Fairly frequently if a person is in jail, a person will be appointed the guardian ad litems. When it is brought to the court’s attention that the person is incarcerated, they will appoint an attorney known as a guardian ad litem who can accept the petition on their behalf. It’s really important that you get the ball rolling as soon as possible because otherwise it’s really going to delay things if you wait. You don’t want to have a situation where you show up to court and the person hasn’t been served because they are in jail. This would result in them not having been served and your hearing getting delayed.
You want to make sure that the court is aware of your ex being in jail as soon as possible so that they can get served with a petition in jail. It really doesn’t matter whether they agree with everything or not, but they need to be appointed a guardian ad litem to help expedite the process. The other issue that you’re going to run into is the grounds for a divorce you are stating. One of the things that can happen from time to time is the other person who was incarcerated for whatever reason doesn’t want the divorce.
If your ex is in jail, then you’ll have to either approve fault based grounds or alternatively, if the person is incarcerated, you will have to go and demonstrate that you’ve been separate and apart for a year. It’s either fault based grounds or you have to be separate for a year in the event that the person does not admit to irreconcilable differences. The only extra thing you may have to have is a witness to say that you’ve been separate and apart from the person for over a year if your ex is in jail.
