Legal Question in Family Law in Texas

You have to satisfy three requirements:

1. Proof that respondent was served has to be on file with the court for 10 days PRIOR to the court entering a default judgment.

2. The default judgment must carefully follow the petition. For example, if in the petition you failed to ask the court to confirm separate property, then you cannot have separate property confirmed in the default judgment. In other words, the default judgment cannot give you more than what your petition asked for.

3. The divorce must have been on file for at least 60 days.

Once all those requirements are met, then the earliest possible default date is 10:30 a.m. on the Monday following the expiration of 20 days from the date of service. In other words, take the date Respondent was served, add 20 days, and then go to the next Monday. That Monday is the earliest default date, subject to all the other requirements above.

Also, you should know that most default prove-ups are legally inadequate. They are not challenged very often, so they survive. But if your prove up is legally inadequate, the Respondent can come in and appeal the default judgment and it will be overturned. For that reason, you want to make sure that you have an adequate prove up script, not just the standard one the bailiff gives out. The standard script is OK if all you want is a divorce. But if there are kid or property issues, you need a more thorough script.

Good luck!!