Timeline in Indiana

The 60-Day Floor Runs From Filing

Indiana's waiting period is a floor on the final hearing and decree, not a separate cooling-off period before filing. It runs from the date the petition is filed. Even a fully uncontested case with a signed settlement agreement can't get a decree until that 60 days has run. This applies whether the case proceeds through a standard final hearing or through the summary dissolution route under Ind. Code § 31-15-2-13, which still requires the same 60-day minimum before the court can act.

Two-Tier Residency: State and County

Indiana's residency rule trips up more filers than most because it has two separate parts. At least one spouse must have been an Indiana resident, or stationed at a military installation in Indiana, for six months before filing. Separately, at least one spouse must have resided in the specific county where the petition is filed for three months before filing. Being stationed at a military installation in that county also counts. Someone who recently moved between Indiana counties can clear the statewide six-month bar easily while still falling short of the three-month county requirement. That's a common and easy-to-miss mistake.

Summary Dissolution Without a Final Hearing

Indiana's official statewide self-represented litigant packet includes a Verified Waiver of Final Hearing form, which can be filed no earlier than 60 days after the petition. If both spouses file that waiver, along with either a statement that no issues are contested or a signed settlement agreement resolving everything, the court can act. It can enter a summary dissolution decree under Ind. Code § 31-15-2-13 without holding a final hearing at all. This isn't a separate eligibility-capped track the way some states' summary divorce laws work. It's available to any case where both spouses agree, regardless of the length of the marriage or the value of the property involved.

What Restarts or Delays a Case

The 60-day floor is fixed from filing. The main variable in Indiana is whether the case can qualify for the no-hearing summary dissolution route or has to go to a contested final hearing. A dispute over property is a common source of delay in Indiana specifically, because of the state's one-pot property division rule. Under Ind. Code § 31-15-7-4, all property either spouse owns goes into the divisible marital estate. That includes assets from before the marriage or received as gifts or inheritance, with no automatic carve-out for separate property. That broader scope of what's on the table can make property disputes more likely.

In states that wall off separate property by default, those same disputes are less likely to turn a case contested.