Knoxville Divorce Lawyer - Barnes & Fersten
Experienced Divorce Attorneys In Tennessee
Talk With a Knoxville Divorce Lawyer
Call Barnes & Fersten: 865-805-5703
Divorce affects far more than your marital status. Your home, finances, relationship with your children, and plans for the future may all be at stake.
At Barnes & Fersten, we help people facing divorce in Knoxville understand their options, protect their interests, and make informed decisions at every stage of the process. Whether you and your spouse agree on most issues or you are preparing for a contested divorce, you deserve a legal strategy built around your circumstances and priorities.
Divorce Attorneys In Knoxville
Divorce can involve a wide range of legal, financial, and family issues. Barnes & Fersten helps clients in Knoxville navigate each stage of the process, from filing and negotiating agreements to resolving disputes involving property, children, support, and other important matters.
Our services include:
Uncontested Divorce
When spouses can agree on the terms of their divorce, the process may be less adversarial. An agreement still needs to address the legal and financial issues involved, including property and, when applicable, matters involving children.
We can help you understand the proposed terms before they become part of a final divorce decree.
Contested Divorce
A divorce becomes more complicated when spouses disagree about property, parenting arrangements, support, or other significant issues.
We can work to resolve disputes through negotiation when appropriate while preparing to advocate in court when an agreement cannot be reached.
Property and Debt Division
Divorce may require decisions involving a home, vehicles, bank accounts, investments, retirement benefits, businesses, personal property, loans, credit cards, and other assets and debts.
Tennessee courts use an equitable division standard when dividing marital property. That means the court considers statutory factors to reach an equitable distribution rather than automatically dividing every marital asset equally.
Child Custody and Parenting Plans
For parents, few issues matter more than what happens with their children after a divorce.
Tennessee divorce cases involving minor children generally require a permanent parenting plan addressing issues such as parenting time, decision-making responsibilities, and other aspects of raising the children after separation.
When parents cannot agree, Tennessee courts make custody decisions based on the child’s best interests and applicable statutory factors.
Child Support
Child support can become an important part of a divorce involving children. We can help you understand how support issues may affect your case and address disputes concerning the information used to determine support.
Alimony
Spousal support is not automatic in every Tennessee divorce. Courts may consider the parties’ financial circumstances and numerous statutory factors when determining whether alimony is appropriate.
We can help you evaluate potential alimony issues from either side of the case.
How Does Divorce Work in Tennessee?
Although every case takes its own path, a Tennessee divorce generally involves several stages.
1. Evaluate Your Situation
Before filing—or immediately after being served—it is important to understand the financial, parenting, and legal issues that could affect your case.
2. File and Serve the Divorce Complaint
The divorce process formally begins with the filing of a complaint. Tennessee also has jurisdiction and residency requirements that must be considered before filing.
3. Address Immediate Issues
Some divorces require temporary arrangements concerning finances, property, support, or children while the case remains pending.
4. Exchange Information and Negotiate
The parties may need to identify assets, debts, income, expenses, and other relevant information. Many cases are resolved through negotiation or mediation rather than a trial.
5. Resolve Parenting Issues
When minor children are involved, a permanent parenting plan will generally need to address parenting responsibilities and schedules.
6. Reach an Agreement or Go to Court
If you and your spouse resolve the disputed issues, the terms can be submitted to the court for approval. If significant disputes remain, a judge may ultimately decide them.
7. Finalize the Divorce
Tennessee imposes a minimum period between filing and the hearing of a divorce case. Generally, a divorce complaint must have been on file for at least 60 days when the parties have no unmarried child under 18 and 90 days when they do. These are minimum statutory periods, not guarantees that a particular divorce will be completed within 60 or 90 days.
What Is at Stake in Your Divorce?
A divorce decree can affect your life long after the case ends.
Important decisions may involve:
- Your home and other real estate
- Savings and investment accounts
- Retirement accounts and pensions
- Business interests
- Vehicles and personal property
- Marital debts
- Parenting schedules
- Decision-making for your children
- Child support
- Spousal support
- Insurance and other financial obligations
Before agreeing to terms simply to “get it over with,” make sure you understand what those terms could mean for your future.
Frequently Asked Questions
Tennessee has minimum waiting periods before a divorce can be heard.
Generally, the complaint must have been on file for at least 60 days if the spouses have no unmarried child under 18, or 90 days if they have an unmarried child under 18.
Those are minimum waiting periods—not guarantees that a divorce will be completed in 60 or 90 days. A contested divorce can take considerably longer depending on the issues involved, negotiations, discovery, mediation, and the court’s schedule.
Not necessarily.
If both spouses agree that the marriage should end and can resolve the required issues, they may be able to pursue a divorce based on irreconcilable differences.
When the spouses cannot reach the necessary agreement, Tennessee law also recognizes other statutory grounds for divorce. The appropriate approach depends on the facts of the case.
An uncontested divorce generally means the spouses have reached agreement on the issues that must be resolved to end the marriage.
Depending on the case, those issues may include property, debts, alimony, and—when children are involved—a parenting plan and child support.
Even when the divorce is amicable, it is important to understand an agreement before signing it. Once incorporated into a final divorce decree, its terms can have long-lasting financial and legal consequences.
In general, marital property includes property acquired by either or both spouses during the marriage, subject to statutory rules and exceptions.
Separate property can include certain property owned before the marriage as well as certain gifts, inheritances, and other property that meets Tennessee’s legal definition of separate property.
The distinction is not always straightforward. How an asset was acquired, titled, used, maintained, or combined with other property may become important.
Retirement benefits accumulated during a marriage may be an important part of the marital estate.
Depending on the type of account and the circumstances, dividing retirement assets can involve additional legal and financial considerations beyond simply deciding on a dollar amount.
Retirement accounts can represent a significant portion of a family’s wealth, so they should not be overlooked when evaluating a proposed divorce settlement.
A divorce is contested when the spouses cannot agree on one or more issues necessary to resolve the case.
Disputes may involve:
- Division of property or debt
- The marital home
- Retirement accounts
- Parenting time
- Decision-making for children
- Child support
- Alimony
- The grounds for divorce
A contested divorce does not automatically mean the case will go to trial. Many disputed cases are ultimately resolved through negotiation or mediation.
Not necessarily.
Many Tennessee divorces are resolved through an agreement between the spouses. Negotiation and mediation can help resolve disputed issues without requiring a judge to decide everything at trial.
If the spouses cannot resolve certain issues, however, the court may ultimately have to decide them.
No.
Tennessee follows an equitable distribution approach to marital property. Equitable does not necessarily mean equal.
The court considers statutory factors when determining how marital property should be divided. Before property can be divided, an important question may also be whether a particular asset is marital property, separate property, or contains elements of both.
There is no single rule that determines who gets the marital home.
Possible resolutions can include one spouse keeping the house, selling it and dividing the proceeds as part of the overall property settlement, or another arrangement negotiated by the parties.
Questions involving equity, mortgages, refinancing, separate-property claims, children, and the overall division of the marital estate may all affect the outcome.
Before agreeing to keep or give up a home, it is important to understand both the legal and financial consequences.
Debt can be part of the property-division process along with assets.
The fact that a credit card, loan, or other obligation is in one spouse’s name does not necessarily answer every question about how the debt will be treated between the spouses in the divorce.
It is also important to distinguish between what a divorce decree requires between spouses and what obligations may continue to exist with a third-party creditor.
Talk To A Knoxville Divorce Lawyer About Your Options
Divorce can affect your family, finances, and future, but you do not have to navigate the process without guidance. Whether you are considering filing, trying to reach an agreement, or responding to a divorce already in progress, Barnes & Fersten can help you understand your options and determine the best path forward.
Talk with a Knoxville divorce lawyer about your situation today. Call 865-805-5703 or fill out our contact form to schedule a consultation.
