Searching Santa Barbara County Divorce Records
California divorce records can be claimed by requesting them at the specific county Superior Court Office where the divorce was originally filed. They are also the ones in-charge of providing certified copies to the one who requests for them. They are Santa Barbara County Divorce Records Free Lookup maintained at the Office of Vital Statistics of the Florida Department of Health. The office of Vital Statistics only keeps records of divorces that occurred from 1962 to 1984.
Requests can be made by going personally to the county Superior Courts, or Online Santa Barbara County Divorce Records through mail. Each certified copy costs $13 and are only payable by check or money order. You can also choose for the records to be faxed but pay an extra $7. You need to provide basic personal information of the spouses such as names, birthday of both spouses, county where the divorce occurred, and date of divorce. In case the date is unknown, indicate a range of possible years where it might have occurred.
You need to complete an application form to make a request. You will also need to attach a sworn statement signed by you. If you are making the request by mail, then you will have to get your sworn statement notarized or your request will be rejected otherwise. Superior Courts will not give any refund even if your request gets rejected.
As part of the Freedom of Information Act, divorce records are deemed as public records. The records can be used for a number of reasons from financial to personal. However, they can only be accessed by those names mentioned in the records, legal representatives, or other entities as specified by the state of law. Sealing of divorce records are also allowed if the couple wishes to do so. This enables to preserve their rights to privacy.
All states will recognize divorce granted from other states and all states impose minimum time for residence before qualifying for application of divorce. A divorce decree will not be granted unless all legal issues pertaining to the divorce are settled. Legal issues include child support guidelines, child support division, deductions of alimony, health insurance coverage, property divisions, and more.
Claiming public divorce records at government agencies require an ample amount of time to process because they have to go through several standard procedures. In California, the process takes about to 15 to 20 weeks. If you have an immediate need to get the records, then seek the help of online record providers. It may cost you a little more than getting them from government agencies but will save you a considerable amount of time. Although there are two types of providers namely the free-of-charge and fee-based, it is best to opt to go for fee-based providers because they can provide a more organized and complete version of the records. This is possible because they gather data from both public and private resources which enable them to choose, from more files, which ones are important.
