Uncontested Divorce Lawyer in Denver, CO Agreements, Filings and Next Steps

How you know it is actually uncontested

Everything the decree has to contain is settled in writing: every asset and every debt assigned, whether maintenance is paid and for how long, child support, decision-making, and a parenting schedule. Colorado asks only that the marriage be irretrievably broken, so nobody has to establish grounds against anybody. Then test the harder question, which is whether the simplified route is even open to you. Rule 16.2(e)(11) reserves reduced disclosure for parties where neither holds an interest in a pension, an interest in a trust, or separate property with net equity above $10,000. A single teaching pension takes a Denver couple out of that lane entirely.

Two different ninety-one-day rules

Both live in 14-10-106 and they are not the same requirement. Subsection (1)(a)(I) is residency: one spouse domiciled in Colorado for ninety-one days next preceding the commencement of the proceeding. Subsection (1)(a)(III) is the waiting period: no decree until ninety-one days or more have elapsed since the court acquired jurisdiction over the respondent, by Rule 4 service, by joining the petition as copetitioner, or by entering an appearance in any other manner. Signing jointly as copetitioners starts that clock on the filing date and removes the service step, which is the single largest scheduling difference between a cooperative filing and a served one. Ninety-one days is a floor. Nothing in the statute delivers a decree on day ninety-two.

The first week, in order

Sequence matters more than speed. Petition and case information sheet, then either a joint signature or service, then the financial paperwork. Within 42 days of filing or receiving the petition come the Sworn Financial Statement on JDF 1111, supporting schedules on JDF 1111SS, and the Certificate of Compliance on JDF 1104. Denver publishes simplified versions for its own court: DEN 1 for a petition without children, DEN 3 as a Simplified Sworn Financial Statement, DEN 4 as a Simplified Separation Agreement, DEN 5 as a Simplified Parenting Plan. Agreed terms go into the Property and Financial Agreement, JDF 1115. Where the court can enter a decree without a hearing, JDF 1018 is the affidavit that supports it. One deadline hides after the decree: a name restoration filed within sixty days of the signed decree carries no filing fee, and after that window it does.

The mistake that costs you the agreement

Signing a document that leaves work undone. Rule 16.2(e)(1) imposes an affirmative duty of full and honest disclosure without awaiting inquiry, and a friendly spouse who forgot a deferred bonus has still created a disclosure problem the court can revisit. The other frequent error is language that reads fine and does nothing. "He keeps the house" with no refinance deadline, no deadline for the deed, and no allocation of the mortgage leaves the departing spouse on the note and on the credit report, still liable for a loan on a Park Hill property they no longer occupy. Denver's median owner-occupied home value sat at $586,700 in the Census Bureau's 2019 through 2023 estimates, so this is rarely a small mistake.

What the other side does, even when cooperative

Cooperative spouses still act in their own interest, and usually without meaning any harm by it. Watch for a draft trading a fixed sum now against a retirement account later with no adjustment for the tax due on withdrawal, a maintenance clause written as permanent and unmodifiable, or a parenting schedule with no holiday table at all. Section 14-10-124(7) says a parenting plan must be as specific as possible, and it lists what belongs in one. That list runs to the type of decision-making awarded, a practical schedule including holidays and school vacations, and a procedure for exchanges covering location and who transports the child. It also calls for procedures on how the parents communicate about the child, and how a parent communicates with the child outside their own time.

What happens after the petition is filed

Agreed cases still meet Rule 16.2(c)(1)(E), which sets the Initial Status Conference or a filed Stipulated Case Management Plan no later than 42 days from filing. Filing that plan together with the mandatory disclosures and the Certificate of Compliance exempts both parties from attending. Otherwise the conference happens with a Family Court Facilitator, a magistrate, or a judge, who reviews the drafted forms and clarifies what is still outstanding. Denver's DEN 2 is the local Initial Status Conference notice, and every DEN form is restricted to Denver District Court and must be completed in English.

How fees work in a Colorado domestic case

Colo. RPC 1.5(c)(4)(ii) prohibits an agreement where payment is contingent on the securing of a divorce or on the amount of maintenance or child support, or property settlement in lieu of those amounts. That rules out any percentage of the outcome, so payment here is hourly or a flat sum for a stated scope, communicated in writing before or within a reasonable time after the work starts, with unearned advances held in trust as client property. An uncontested matter is the one place a fixed scope genuinely fits, which makes the useful question narrow: what is inside the defined number, and what event pushes the case out of it. The court's own charges are separate, and a $260 petition fee is the same $260 whether anyone disagrees or not.