Oklahoma Is a No-Fault State
Video Transcribed: Divorce in Oklahoma, how does that work? I am Stuart Ericson, I am an attorney in Wagoner. Oklahoma is a no-fault state. I think we’ve been a no-fault state since 1953, believe, which means you don’t have to prove grounds for divorce other than incompatibility, mutual incompatibility. There are other grounds for divorce, extreme cruelty, and a whole lot of others but those are rarely used today. People usually just allege incompatibility and move forward.
To start any divorce in Oklahoma, you must know where to file and if jurisdiction is present in Oklahoma. So for Oklahoma to have jurisdiction, you have must have been a resident of the state of Oklahoma for at least six months.
And then the venue is which county is a divorce filed in? That’s what venue means. So is it in Tulsa County, is it in Wagoner County, is it in Okfuskee County, Okmulgee County? That’s the venue.
And the petitioner, whoever files it must have lived in that county for at least 30 days or it can also be filed where the respondent lives, whichever county they live. Either one of those would be good for the venue.
When children are involved, Oklahoma must be the home state of that child. And again, that generally means that the child has lived in the state of Oklahoma for at least six consecutive months.
Otherwise, you get situations where the law will come into play if another state is involved and the judges will work out where is this divorce properly filed. But that’ll be a topic for in the future.
So once all this is determined, a divorce petition can be filed, and that essentially kind of gets the process started. My name is Stuart Ericson I am a Lawyer in Wagoner. You can reach me at WagonerLawyer.com.
