face="Helvetica">Back to Crouch & Crouch homepage "Separation" means two different things in Virginia: 1. Living apart for a certain amount of time, which is the only no-fault ground of divorce in Virginia. Your status as "living apart" does not require any formal documentation -- it means that one person leaves the marriage, and establishes a separate household, with the intention of permanent separation. To get a divorce on this ground, you need to have one spouse, AND a third-party witness, testify that the separation, and the intention of permanent separation, was continuously maintained for one year before the date the case for no-fault divorce was filed. However, this period is reduced to six months if there are no minor children and a Separation Agreement (see below). 2. "Separation Agreements", also often called "Property Settlement Agreements." Both of these names are usually a misnomer, because what they usually are is a binding written contract settling all the issues that a court could address in a divorce case: property, debts, pensions, child support, spousal support (a.k.a. "alimony"), and child custody and visitation (a.k.a. "parenting time"). However, sometimes there are agreements that only cover some of these issues and leave others unresolved; and sometimes there are agreements that are only temporary. It is very important to have a lawyer either draft the Agreement, or at least review it with you before you sign it. If you can only afford to use a lawyer for one part of the divorce process, that is the part where it is most important to have one. Unlike some other states, we do not have something called "Legal Separation" which has to be issued by, or filed with, a court or any other governmental office. We do have a couple similar institutions called "separate maintenance" and "divorce from bed and board," but they are very rarely used.

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