Divorce: Servicemembers and their Domicile.

A person can file for a divorce in Michigan if Michigan has personal jurisdiction over the parties and the matter.  That is, Michigan has to have the power to exercise their judgment (authority) over the parties.

In order for a party to be able to file a divorce in Michigan, one party must have resided in Michigan for 180 days immediately preceding the filing of the complaint for divorce and must have resided in the county in which the divorce is to be filed for at least 10 days preceding the filing.

For servicemember’s, the resident of the servicemember may be different from the place where the servicemember is stationed or the servicemember’s home of record.  In fact federal law allows a servicemember to retain his/her legal residence at the time the servicemember entered into military service.  Nevertheless, depending on the servicemember’s action and intent, the servicemember may have indeed changed his/her domicile.  However, in order for a servicemember to change his/her domicile the servicemember must show unequivocal intent to abandon his/her domicile and retain a new one.