Thursday, December 8, 2011

Florida Divorce Records Online Procedure

By Jessica Barnes


Florida Divorce Records has been maintained in the State Office of Vital Statistics under Florida Department of Health since 1927. During that year, a law was enacted to promote centralization of marriage and divorce records. Florida divorce records are officially termed as the Dissolution of Marriage Records.

Since Florida is the 4th largest state by population in the United States with 18 million people, millions of divorce records have been filed since the centralization in 1927. With a rate of 6 out of a 1000 people, Florida is amongst the leaders in divorce filed.

Divorce records dating from June 6, 1927 up to the present are stored by the Florida Department of Health. There are no restrictions for ordering a copy of these records as long as the required fee which is $5 US dollars and information are accompanied. Fees for these records are non-refundable. For records not found, the no refund policy will still be in effect and the one who made the order will be given a certificate with a statement saying "not found".

Requesting a copy for divorce records can be done through mail. You just need to follow these very simple steps: first, provide a signed letter or fill out an application form with details about the records you want to obtain. Next, also fill out details about yourself, the sender, and include it in your letter. Once you're done filling out the said details, send it to the Bureau of Vital Statistics. In cases where the sender forgot the exact date or year the divorce record was filed, include in the letter a range of years where the divorce could have possibly been filed. If this happens, an additional fee of $2 per year searched is required. Request for multiple copies will cost $4 if they are ordered at the same time.

The process of ordering these records takes 2 to 3 weeks. But you can also request for a RUSH service, which takes 3 working days to arrive. And there is also the Express Delivery where your order can be sent to you overnight. The latter 2 ways of ordering cost more than the first one.

Divorce records are deemed public records in any state but they are difficult to gather. Divorce record searches are multi-state making it troublesome because the databases of states are not linked together. But there are available commercial records brokers that maintain live databases that make searching for divorce records a whole lot easier.




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