It’s for a friend I swear! 
Anyway, what I said in the title. Can a guy in the military stationed in Italy divorce his wife in San Diego without ever leaving Italy? :eek:
I have no idea. The person to ask would be a California attorney familiar with family law. On thing worth noting – the divorce and the division of property are two separate things; even if an Italian court can grant the divorce, the property division might have to be done in California or, at least, according to California’s community property principles.
Or maybe not – I sure as hell don’t know.
–Cliffy
I’m not an expert but I don’t think so. OUr situation was slightly different. We were both in Italy. By Italain law, you have to be seperated 2 years to be legally divorced. We were both Florida residents and by Florida law we had to be in the state 6 months to be legally divorced there - you can see the dilemma. We basically stayed married and acted divorced for three years until we came back statesdie. It was a botch. Check with your local legal office, they can either help you or direct you to a California lawyer who will be able to give you specific guidelines.
I second the checking w/ the legal office thing. Had a friend at the base here get her divorce while she was her ex was living in Cali. Documents were mailed back and forth no physical appearence needed. Suppose it depends on how simple/complex it is with regards to property/kids/debts etc.
Mr. Chattywine’s divorce (Italian) took 4 years. First 2 as mipiace said, the mandatory seperation time, once that was complete the two had to appear again before a judge to declare YES YES they DO want a divorce, then it was another 14-15 months (huge backlog) before final court date was given. I reccomend he go thru the base. 
IANAL orwhathaveyou.
Base Legal can answer that in about a half second, I would wager he could do it. I divorced the EvilBitchFromHell while living in GA and she was in MA, FedEx to the rescue (uncontested divorce). I am VERY confident SHE could file as the plaintiff and it would be fine with him overseas, again, in an uncontested situation, with FedEx involved.
The base legal cannot handle a divorce, or any other family law issue, for that matter. They may, though, provide you with a list of lawyers authorized by the local jurisdiction to practice therein, but they may not recommend any one of them.
IIRC, the spouse residing in the US may petition locally for divorce and the court there will transmit the appropriate legal documents to the overseas spouse. If both spouses happen to be resident (for the purposes of family law issues) in the same overseas jurisdiction (such as the exwife & I were in the later days of our now thankfully long ago dissolved marriage), then either spouse may petition the local court for divorce and the court, provided that jurisdiction permits divorce (the Philippines, for example does not; however, they do have a rather interesting method of recognizing certain foreign divorces), may then grant same.
My belief is that beause this involves a military member, he can file in the US by locating an attorney in his home state and it all can be done by mail. The person who files first determines where the divorce will be ajudicated and gets to set the terms, which must then be countered by the other person. Military members have a “home state” that remains their residence even through they may live elsewhere. Of course if that isn’t CA, then his wife will be forced to get an attorney in the home state. Hopefully it isn’t a state that requires his physical presence. My divorce was granted in NY while I lived in CA. I never met my attorney or had to go to court.
My ex was a Naval officer and was stationed in NY at the time he filed (and a resident of CT). I was in CA, although not a resident, and had to get a NY attorney.
Also, I would recommend that they get an attorney familiar with military divorces because one of the most important assets is the member’s pension and his wife may be entitled to part of that. I know, I know, military members Don’t start a rant on that sore subject. This asset is considered marital property under federal law but is divided up according to STATE law, not federal law, so the state where the divorce takes place is important in that regard. Case in point: even though we were married 23 years I only got 23% of his pension because NY is an “equitable division” state, not a Community Property state like CA, and that’s what the judge decided. My attorney didn’t argue. And I wasn’t there to ask him to. Also, I later had to go back to the judge and have him contact the attorney and tell him to amend the decree on a point that, in the judge’s opinion, should have been included. The attorney wanted to charge me $1,000 for 10 minutes work. If he had been familiar with military divorces he wouldn’t have overlooked it in the first place.
Also, the wife may have entitlement to an I.D. card, depending on how long the marriage lasted and she needs to be informed about that, esp for medical care for any children.
I wouldn’t even go to an overseas attorney. My belief is that wherever the military member resides overseas it has no bearing on the divorce proceedings. Military members are never residents of other countries by virtue of their presence there.
There’s a piss-poor (IMHO) federal law that stipulates that under certain conditions the military member’s retirement pay (more accurately, retainer pay) is subject to distribution with the non-military ex-spouse. You’ll notice that not a one of those conditions is that the ex-spouse put her life in danger like the military member did nor make any of the at-sea deployments like the military member did, etc.
Your belief about wherever the military member is overseas is just wrong. If both the member and the spouse are living overseas, then, as noted earlier, the local family courts have jurisdiction. Heck, the local courts have jurisdiction over the civilians on base unless those civilians are enjoying diplomatic immunity (which is not automatic by virtue of being stationed or accompaning one’s sponsor overseas).
The wife is not overseas. She’s in San Diego. He wants to initiate a divorce in the US.
I didn’t say they didn’t have jurisdiction over military members. I said they weren’t residents. Of course, if you live overseas you must abide by their laws, and if you break a law in another country you are subject to their legal system.
I mentioned the pension issue because it’s the law. Like it or not.
Hrm.
I don’t think he needs to abide by any Italian laws. They were married in San Diego and he is just stationed here. They are both residents of CA also. It’s only his first enlistment and there is no pension/propery/kids issue either.
Ill recommend doing it by mail to him tho, grazie =)
Then you realize that, as I said above, for the purposes of the family law court, the person living overseas is, in fact & in law, resident overseas for the purposes of the family law court.
And I don’t like the pension issue. As it is the law, I do my lawful bit to get that law repealed.