The Pennsylvania Divorce Code, in late 2016, was modified to reduce the waiting period for a unilateral no-fault divorce from two years to one. As such, the parties must be separated for one year before one of the parties can proceed with obtaining a no-fault divorce. When does the clock start for purposes of determining the date of separation? The actual date of separation in a Pennsylvania divorce matters, as does the way the court evaluates this important issue.

During an initial consultation with a prospective divorce client, one of the first questions an attorney asks, after gathering the relevant biographical information, is when is the date of the parties’ separation. While Pennsylvania does not recognize “legal separation,” the date of the separation is still vitally important in divorce matters. Most times, this question can be answered rather easily. The husband moved out of the marital residence several months earlier. Or maybe the wife filed a complaint in divorce. Other times the answer is not so cut and dry. In fact, the date that the client believes a spouse separated may differ drastically from when the other spouse thinks the parties separated. How can they be so far apart? It happens often in divorce cases. Perhaps the couple has been living in separate bedrooms, but filing joint tax returns and sharing bank accounts. Or maybe they continued living together for their children’s sake so as to maintain the “status quo.”

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