Filing an uncontested divorce in Imperial County

One place to file: the El Centro Main Courthouse

Imperial County has a single superior court with three buildings. Its Courthouse Locations page lists the El Centro Courthouse, the El Centro Criminal Courthouse and the Winterhaven Court, and its Local Rules describe the same three: Rule 2.7(a) divides the county into El Centro (Main), El Centro (Wake) and Winterhaven venues, Rule 2.6 places a clerk's office at each of the three courthouses, and Rule 2.4 gives their addresses as 939 W. Main Street and 650 Wake Avenue in El Centro and 2124 Winterhaven Drive in Winterhaven. Rule 2.7(d) then settles where a divorce goes: all papers in general or unlimited civil, family law, probate cases and appeals are filed in the clerk's office in the El Centro (Main) Courthouse. A dissolution petition, a response, a declaration of disclosure's proof of service and a judgment packet are all family law papers, and that rule carries each of them to the Main Courthouse.

The El Centro Courthouse page gives the address as 939 West Main Street, El Centro, CA 92243, the telephone number as (760) 482-2200, and the hours as Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Those are the hours the court publishes for the building. The same page lists department lines, among them Family Law Self Help at (760) 482-2233, the Call Center at (760) 336-3500 and Remote Appearances at (760) 482-2273. The court's fee page adds a rule about payment: the Superior Court accepts payments in U.S. funds only.

Because the rule names one filing location for family law, there is no choice of courthouse to make and no assignment rule to apply; the caption of your petition and your filing instructions name the El Centro Main Courthouse. Who hears the case is set by Local Rule 2.3(c), which assigns two judges and one part-time AB 1058 commissioner to the family and juvenile divisions to hear matters as assigned by the Juvenile Presiding Judge. Rule 2.5 numbers the departments, Departments 1 through 9 in the Main Courthouse, 10 through 13 in the Wake Courthouse and one at Winterhaven, without saying which of them hears family law. The court's Family Law division page describes the division's work as actions for divorce, legal separation, annulment and parentage, among others, and points the reader to the Access Center at 939 W Main Street. The three buildings, as the court's location pages gave them on October 18, 2026:

• El Centro Courthouse (the Main Courthouse, where family law papers are filed): 939 West Main Street, El Centro, CA 92243, (760) 482-2200, Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
• El Centro Criminal Courthouse (the Wake Courthouse): 650 Wake Ave, El Centro, CA 92243, (760) 482-2200.
• Winterhaven Court: 2124 Winterhaven Dr., Winterhaven, CA 92283, (760) 336-3500.

The first-paper fee, as two schedules number it

The court's Fee, Penalty and Bail Schedules page links a Statewide Civil Fee Schedule effective January 1, 2026, and the copy the court posts is a twelve-page PDF headed Superior Court of California, County of Imperial, Statewide Civil Fee Schedule, Effective January 1, 2026. Read on October 18, 2026, it lists a petition or other first paper for dissolution of marriage or domestic partnership, legal separation or nullity as item 98 at $435, under Government Code sections 70670(b), 70602.5 and 70602.6, and a response or other first paper filed in response to such a petition as item 99 at $435, under section 70670(d). Its item 102 charges no fee for a settlement agreement or stipulation for judgment signed by a defaulted respondent and included in a judgment of dissolution. The court's FL-18Info sheet, reproduced in the appendix to the Local Rules, states the fee to file the Response at the same amount, $435.

The Judicial Council's own Statewide Civil Fee Schedule of the same date, also read on October 18, 2026, numbers the same papers differently. There the petition is item 97 at $435 and the response is item 98 at $435, and a separate item 99 lists a joint petition for dissolution or legal separation, except in summary dissolution cases, at $870, with the note that the fee covers the appearance of both petitioners. Item 100 lists a joint petition for summary dissolution at $435, and item 103 charges no fee for the defaulted respondent's settlement agreement, as the court's item 102 does. The two schedules print the same amounts for the petition and the response and number them differently; for a joint petition this page follows the Judicial Council's item 99, both first-paper fees.

Both schedules mark the dissolution fees with an asterisk and carry the same footnote: fees so marked vary in the counties of Riverside, San Bernardino and San Francisco because of a local surcharge for courthouse construction. Imperial County is not one of the three, so the amount each schedule prints is the amount paid at the El Centro counter or through a provider. The items an uncontested divorce meets, in the court's numbering with the Judicial Council's in parentheses:

• Item 98 (Judicial Council item 97), $435: a petition or other first paper for dissolution of marriage or domestic partnership, legal separation or nullity, under Government Code sections 70670(b), 70602.5 and 70602.6, paid when the petition is filed.
• Item 99 (Judicial Council item 98), $435: a response or other first paper filed in response to the petition, under Government Code section 70670(d), paid by a spouse who files a response.
• Judicial Council item 99, $870: a joint petition for dissolution or legal separation other than a summary dissolution, both first-paper fees on one line.
• Judicial Council item 100, $435: a joint petition for summary dissolution, one first-paper fee.
• Item 102 (Judicial Council item 103), no fee: a settlement agreement or stipulation for judgment signed by a defaulted respondent and included in a judgment of dissolution.

How many first-paper fees each path pays here

A summary dissolution under Family Code sections 2400 to 2403 pays one first-paper fee, $435, which the Judicial Council's schedule prints as its item 100. An ordinary petition where your spouse signs the settlement agreement and files no response pays one first-paper fee, $435, and the spouse's signed agreement is included in the judgment at no charge under the court's item 102. An ordinary petition where your spouse files a response pays two, $870 between the two of you, one at the petition and one at the response. A joint petition under Family Code section 2342.5, in force since January 1, 2026, pays both first-paper fees, $870: subdivision (h) of that section provides that a joint petition is filed with the fees of Government Code section 70670(b) and (d) unless both spouses have fee waivers, and that is the figure this page shows for a joint petition in Imperial County. The joint petition does not save a court fee in Imperial County; it pays both first-paper fees.

The office's fee is a separate payment to the office and not to the court: $599 for a summary dissolution, $999 for a joint petition, $1,499 for an ordinary petition. For that flat fee the attorney prepares and reviews every document in a limited scope engagement under California Rules of Court, rule 5.425, and writes the filing instructions for Imperial County, reviewed by the attorney before they are released to you. The flat fee includes one revision round of the settlement agreement and the first correction of a judgment packet the court returns; a further revision round is quoted before any work on it is done. The fee is earned in stages, and if the representation ends early the part not yet earned is refunded.

The office does not file the documents, does not serve your spouse, does not appear in court, does not provide a notary, and does not prepare or record deeds. You file as a self-represented litigant, carrying the attorney's written instructions. One spouse alone is represented by the office. In the divorce the other spouse is not a client of this office and is not advised by it, and may consult an attorney of their own choosing.

If you cannot afford the fee

The court's website, searched for the words fee waiver on October 18, 2026, returned no page of its own on the subject, so this section relies on two documents that do speak to it. The first is the court's FL-18Info sheet in the Local Rules appendix, which tells a responding party that a person who cannot afford to pay the filing fee may apply to the court for an order waiving the filing fee and other fees, and points to the Judicial Council's information sheet, form FW-001-INFO. The second is the Judicial Council's guide, Ask for a fee waiver, which says that a fee waiver in a divorce case can help cover the fee to file divorce papers, the fee to respond to divorce papers and the fees for a request for order, that the request may be filed with the petition, with the response or later, and that a waiver expires 60 days after judgment is entered, the case is dismissed or the judge makes a final decision.

Government Code sections 68630 to 68634 govern the waiver. A waiver is granted to a person who receives a listed public benefit, whose household income is at or below the limit printed on form FW-001, or who cannot pay the fee and still meet the household's basic needs (section 68632); the Judicial Council's guide puts it as three routes of which you need meet only one. The request is the Request to Waive Court Fees, form FW-001, and the clerk files the petition while the court decides it (section 68634(c)). The court's Remote Appearances page adds one consequence of a granted waiver in this county: a party with a fee waiver pays no remote appearance fee.

On a joint petition, Family Code section 2342.5(h) requires both first-paper fees unless both spouses hold waivers, so each spouse who needs one files a request of their own. The office prepares the request within the flat fee when you ask for it. A waiver covers court fees only; the office's fee is not a court fee and is not waived by the court.

E-filing: required of attorneys, open to you

The court's File Online page states that initial and subsequent filings for all case types, with the exception of traffic, can be filed online, and that under Local Rule 2.18 certain case types are mandatory eFile only: civil unlimited, civil limited, probate, family law, family support, small claims and adoptions. The same page states the exemption that matters here: self-represented parties or other self-represented persons are exempt from any mandatory e-filing, however, they are encouraged to electronically file. Local Rule 2.18 itself, effective July 1, 2019 and revised January 1, 2022, makes electronic delivery mandatory from January 1, 2022 for family law among other case types and repeats the exemption for self-represented persons. The office does not appear in the case; you file the documents yourself, and the File Online page's words on self-represented parties are the ones that describe that filing.

A family law document is e-filed through an electronic filing service provider. The File Online page lists the providers that can be used to e-file with the court, a long table of vendors, and tells a filer with a technical problem to contact the provider, which in turn contacts the court's electronic filing manager, Journal Technologies. The court's Local Forms page lists a civil form, Request for Refund (eFiling). Local Rule 2.18 sets the format: a document over 15 pages or with multiple exhibits must be bookmarked, and every electronically delivered document must be text-searchable. Local Rule 2.20, adopted January 1, 2022, requires each document to be submitted as a single, separate, complete electronic document, and warns that electronic documents consolidating multiple documents, or multiple electronic documents holding pieces of a single paper document, are rejected by the court.

Two of the court's pages differ on one point. The Forms and Filing page describes an eDelivery (E-File) portal at portal-imperial.journaltech.com as a site that allows electronic filing in limited civil, unlimited civil, criminal, juvenile, adoptions, probate, family law and support, and appeals. The File Online page, which is the page the court devotes to electronic filing, lists the case types to be filed via eDelivery as juvenile and criminal only and routes family law through a provider. This page follows the File Online page. Your filing instructions name the method.

Filing on paper: the clerk, two conformed copies and the envelope

Filing on paper means the clerk's office at the El Centro Main Courthouse, 939 West Main Street, during the building's published hours, Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Local Rule 2.9 governs what you get back: when an original document is filed, the court conforms two copies at no charge, and if conformed copies are to be returned by mail or messenger a stamped, self-addressed envelope must be submitted with them. So the petition goes in as the original with two copies, and the two copies come back stamped.

At the petition you bring the forms your path uses. An ordinary case opens with the Petition, form FL-100, and the Summons, form FL-110; a joint petition case with the Joint Petition, form FL-700, and its summons; a summary dissolution with the Joint Petition for Summary Dissolution, form FL-800, the property settlement agreement and the Judgment of Summary Dissolution, form FL-825. With them goes the fee in U.S. funds or the fee waiver request. One local document is added by Local Rule 5.1.16(b): the clerk delivers a Notice of Case Management to the petitioner at the time the petition is filed, and the next section says what is done with it.

After service of an ordinary petition, the Proof of Service of Summons, form FL-115, is filed. Family Code section 2104 requires each spouse's preliminary declaration of disclosure, the Declaration of Disclosure, form FL-140, with the Income and Expense Declaration, form FL-150, and the Schedule of Assets and Debts, form FL-142, or the Property Declaration, form FL-160; the disclosure is served on your spouse and the Declaration Regarding Service of Declaration of Disclosure, form FL-141, is what the court receives. Local Rule 5.1.21(a) adds a county detail to the Income and Expense Declaration: a wage earner attaches legible copies of the last two months' pay stubs. The court's local checklist, FL-07, Checklist for Your Divorce Case, lists the Judicial Council forms by phase, FL-110, FL-100, FL-105, FL-140, FL-142, FL-150, FL-160, FL-115, FL-165, FL-120, FL-170, FL-180, FL-190, FL-191 and FL-192, together with the local Case Management Questionnaire and attendance at the conference, and tells a filer to bring a complete copy of the court case and the checklist whenever they come to court to discuss the case.

The case management conference and local form FL-03

Imperial County's one local requirement at the start of every ordinary and joint petition case is in Local Rule 5.1.16, Case Management. Subdivision (b) provides that when a petition is filed, an initial case management conference is scheduled by the court one hundred eighty days thereafter and notice of it is delivered by the clerk to the petitioner at the time the petition is filed. Subdivision (c) provides that a copy of the Notice of Case Management and a blank Case Management Questionnaire, local form FL-03, must be served on the responding party along with the summons and petition. Subdivision (e) provides that at least twenty days before the conference all counsel and self-represented parties must file and serve on all parties a completed FL-03; the form itself, adopted in 2007 and revised through January 1, 2016, prints the deadline as 20 calendar days before the Case Management Conference.

Subdivision (g) lists the case types to which the 180-day conference does not apply, and summary dissolutions are the first of them. A couple who qualifies for a summary dissolution under Family Code section 2400 therefore has no conference and no questionnaire; a couple on an ordinary or joint petition has the conference and the questionnaire. On an ordinary petition that means three steps: the Notice of Case Management the clerk hands you is served with the summons together with a blank FL-03, the conference date on the notice is a date in your case, and a completed FL-03, prepared as one of your documents, is filed and served before the twenty-day mark. California Rules of Court, rule 5.409 and Family Code section 2336 allow a judgment on a written agreement to be entered on declarations without a hearing.

Local rules and local forms

The court's Local Rules page links one edition, Local Rules July 2026, and the PDF states that the rules are adopted July 1, 2026 and replace all rules previously adopted; Rule 1.0 gives the effective date as July 1, 2026. Chapter 5 is Family Law, and Rule 5.1.0 applies its first division to any proceeding under the Family Code for dissolution of marriage or domestic partnership, legal separation or nullity of marriage. The rules in that division an uncontested dissolution can meet are Rule 5.1.16 (case management, described above), Rule 5.1.21 (pay stubs with the Income and Expense Declaration), Rule 5.1.22 (child support calculations attached to a proposed default judgment), Rule 5.1.24 (default or uncontested judgments) and, in the second division, Rule 5.2.0 (the Family Law Facilitator). Rule 5.1.28, on the preparation and service of a proposed judgment after trial, belongs to a tried case, not to one decided on a written agreement.

The court's Local Forms page lists the family law forms approved for use in Imperial County, and the 2026 Local Rules PDF reproduces them in an appendix: the Case Management Questionnaire, FL-03; the Checklist for Divorce Case, FL-07; the Trial Brief, FL-08; the Marital Settlement Agreement, FL-11, with its information sheet, FL-11 INFO; the Family Law Judgment After Trial packet, FL-22, FL-22-1 and FL-22-2; the Stipulation for Mediation, FL-05; the Findings and Order After Hearing letters, FL-04, FL-04A and FL-04Info; and the FL-18 series on letters rogatory, whose information sheet is the FL-18Info quoted elsewhere on this page. Of these, FL-03 is the one Rule 5.1.16 requires in every ordinary and joint petition case. FL-07 is a checklist; FL-05, FL-04 and FL-08 belong to mediation, hearings and trials; and FL-22 is written for a judgment after trial.

FL-11 is the court's own settlement agreement form, two pages long, and FL-11 INFO explains it: a party using the court's form completes FL-11, attaches the Judicial Council forms FL-341, FL-342, FL-343 and FL-345 if applicable, attaches the completed and signed agreement to the Judgment, form FL-180, and submits the Judgment with the other documents required to complete the case. The sheet then states the rule a default case meets: in a default case, the signature of the respondent on the settlement agreement must be notarized. The form carries the same instruction beside the respondent's signature line, notarization required if no response is on file, followed by a notary acknowledgment block, so the form ties the requirement to there being no response on file. The office prepares your settlement agreement and does not provide a notary; where your spouse signs the agreement and files no response, that signature is notarized before a notary you and your spouse arrange.

The judgment in Imperial County

The statewide rules fix what a judgment packet holds. Under California Rules of Court, rule 5.405 the court may require no more of a judgment packet than the Judgment Checklist, form FL-182, and the forms it names; rule 5.411 governs a judgment entered on the spouses' written agreement; rule 5.415 requires the stamped envelopes, addressed to each spouse with the clerk's return address, in which the Notice of Entry of Judgment, form FL-190, is mailed; and Family Code section 2336 with rule 5.409 lets the court enter the judgment on your declaration without a hearing. Family Code section 2105 allows the final declaration of disclosure to be waived in writing, and the waiver goes in the packet where you both sign one. The court's FL-07 checklist lists the judgment-phase forms as FL-165, FL-170, FL-180, FL-190, FL-191 and FL-192.

Imperial County adds its own points. Under Rule 2.7(d) the packet is filed at the El Centro Main Courthouse clerk's office, or e-filed through a provider by a self-represented filer who chooses to; under Rule 2.9 the clerk conforms two copies at no charge and returns them by mail only with a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Where your spouse has signed the settlement agreement and filed no response, FL-11 INFO requires that signature to be notarized, and the court's item 102 charges no fee for including the signed agreement in the judgment. Rule 5.1.24, Default or Uncontested Judgments, requires in a case involving custody or visitation a declaration on the extent of contact between the parents and the children during the last six months, which may be made on FL-170, FL-230 or MC-030, and an updated FL-105 if the children's residence has changed; Rule 5.1.22(a) requires support calculations from Judicial Council-certified software attached to a proposed default judgment with child support. Both rules concern minor children, a case outside the flat fee, and are named here so you know where the court keeps those requirements.

The court's FL-22 instructions, Family Law Judgment After Trial, tell a party to file the original with at least two copies and to include two self-addressed stamped envelopes for the clerk to mail each party's copies signed by the judge. That packet is written for a judgment after a trial, and a judgment on a written agreement is not one. For an uncontested judgment the rules the court states are Rule 2.7(d) on where the packet is filed, Rule 2.9 on the two conformed copies and the envelope for their return, and rule 5.415 on the envelopes for the Notice of Entry of Judgment; your filing instructions name the clerk's office at the Main Courthouse and the method. If the clerk returns the packet with a correction to make, the first correction is part of the flat fee.

Appearing remotely on Microsoft Teams, if a hearing is set

A judgment on a written agreement is entered on declarations under Family Code section 2336 and rule 5.409. If one is set, the court's Remote Appearances page says remote appearance is available for most hearings in civil, family, juvenile, probate, traffic and criminal cases, that the court uses Microsoft Teams, a free download to the public, and that a party registers online through the court's own registration site for civil, family, probate and juvenile matters, or by telephone at (760) 482-2273, which the page gives for registering by phone or when the online registration gives trouble; the page also lists the email address RemoteAppearances@imperial.courts.ca.gov. The page prices it: a remote appearance fee of $25, plus card fees, with a $25 late fee for an untimely registration and a $5 charge on a refund or cancellation request, and no remote appearance fee at all for criminal, traffic, juvenile and restraining order matters or for any party with a fee waiver. The page lists the Judicial Council's remote appearance forms, RA-010 (Notice of Remote Appearance), RA-015, RA-020, RA-025 and RA-030.

Local Rule 2.21, Remote Appearances, effective January 1, 2024 and revised July 1, 2026, sets the timing: remote participants register online no less than 5 business days before the hearing date, and same-day registration is not permitted. Subdivision (c) requires remote appearances on contested matters to be video appearances, and subdivision (h) requires registration in the name of the individual who will actually appear, with any substitution approved by the coordinator before 4:00 p.m. on the day before. The office does not appear at any hearing the court sets.

The Self-Help Access Center and the Family Law Facilitator

The court's self-help service is the Self-Help Access Center, also called the Access Center, at 939 West Main Street, Family Law, El Centro, CA 92243, on the courthouse's lower level as the court's FL-11 INFO sheet places it. Its page gives the hours as Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., closed on court holidays, and says no minors are allowed. The court's Locations page lists its telephone line as Family Law Self Help, (760) 482-2233; the FL-11 INFO sheet gives its email address as accesscenter@imperial.courts.ca.gov; and the center's own page offers a Submit Contact Me Request form. The page describes the service as self-help for family law matters and certain civil cases, for self-represented court customers who seek legal information and resources, and lists divorce, paternity, child support, spousal support, guardianship, conservatorship and requests for order among its services. It gives legal information and not legal advice, and it may serve the other party as well.

The center's page posts a weekly schedule, with a Dissolution Workshop in English and Spanish on two days of the week and sessions on judgments, letters rogatory and marital settlement agreements on two others, in half-hour slots; read the page for the current days and times rather than this one. It asks a visitor to bring the case number, copies of all court cases, pay stubs for the last 90 days and the last two years of tax returns, and to complete the center's Divorce Questionnaire, posted in English and Spanish. The court's LawHelp page lists guided interviews that fill in Judicial Council forms, among them a Divorce Starter Kit Program for starting the dissolution process before coming to the self-help center and a Dissolution Petition and Disclosures program.

Local Rule 5.2.0, in the second division of the family law chapter, establishes the office of the family law facilitator and says it may perform all duties prescribed or permitted by the Family Law Facilitator Act, Family Code section 10000 and following. The court's FL-18Info sheet tells a party that legal information and assistance is available at the Family Law Facilitator's Office in the courthouse where the case was filed and at the Access Center. The court's site publishes no separate office, name, telephone number or hours for the facilitator, so the Access Center is the court contact this page prints.

A case with minor children, a contested case, a business, a pension that needs an order of its own, real property outside California, a legal separation or an annulment, or a spouse who cannot be found is outside the flat fee, in Imperial County as in every county. The State Bar of California's Lawyer Referral Service directory, at calbar.ca.gov/Public/Need-Legal-Help/Lawyer-Referral-Service, lists the certified lawyer referral services for every county.

After the judgment, in this county

The judgment states the date the marriage ends, under Family Code section 2340, and that date is never earlier than six months after your spouse was served or appeared, under section 2339; the Judicial Council's form FL-107-INFO counts it as six months and one day. For a summary dissolution, Family Code section 2403 and the Judicial Council's guide, Getting a summary dissolution in California, put it the same way: a summary dissolution becomes final six months after the joint petition is filed with the court. The clerk mails the entered Judgment and the Notice of Entry of Judgment, form FL-190, to each spouse in the envelopes your packet supplied. Nothing filed in El Centro, on paper or through a provider, shortens the six months.

To file in Imperial County at all, Family Code section 2320 requires that you or your spouse have lived in California for six months and in the county for three months before the petition is filed. The Judicial Council's guide, Divorce in California, describes the ordinary divorce, the summary dissolution and the divorce by joint petition, which it calls a newer option where you and your spouse file for divorce together; the court's own site, searched for the word divorce on October 18, 2026, returned no page by that name, and its Family Law division page and Access Center page are where its divorce information lives. Because the office does not prepare or record deeds, any transfer of real property your agreement calls for is handled after the judgment by a title company or another attorney.

Every address, hour, fee, rule number and form number on this page was read from the court's own pages and PDFs, the Judicial Council's schedule and its guides on October 18, 2026, and each source is listed below. What those materials did not confirm is left off.

Rozsa Gyene, State Bar of California No. 208356, 3500 W. Olive Ave., Suite 300, Burbank, CA 91505.