After you have filed a petition to end your marriage, Georgia divorce laws require that your spouse receive personal notification.
Typically, the papers must be hand-delivered to your spouse. A private process server or the sheriff’s office can hand-deliver the papers for a fee. If you do not know where your spouse is, you may also be able to provide notice through publication in a newspaper.
If your spouse is willing to cooperate, you can avoid the process of having notification delivered. You do this by having your spouse sign an Acknowledgement of Service and file it with the court.
If you cannot locate your spouse, you can provide service by publication with court permission. This involves publishing a notice in a newspaper.
Your spouse has 30 days to respond after being served with papers (or 60 days if they live outside of Georgia but still in the U.S.). If your spouse does not respond, the court can move forward with a default divorce and grant the requests you made in the divorce paperwork.
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