A party has 20 days beginning the day after he is served with a Complaint and Summons to file a responsive pleading, such as an Answer or a Motion. If that party doesn’t respond in 20 days, you can initiate default proceedings. If the party has an attorney who has made an appearance (even a phone call or email counts as an “appearance”), or if the party himself has communicated with you or your attorney, the you have to send a Three Day Notice Of Intent To Take Default. This puts the other side on notice that you’re about to proceed without him. If three days pass and you still don’t hear anything, you can proceed on the Default Application.
If, however, you haven’t heard a peep out of the other side and 20 days has passed, then you can send the Default Application directly to the Clerk. When it is returned signed and stamped from the Clerk, you have to file it, and from this point on, you need not serve the other side with any documents, or give notice of any hearings to the other side.
The next step is to request a prove-up hearing in your department. This is where you and your attorney go into court and make a record of all of the items that are put into the Decree of Divorce. You still need to file a Decree with the Court to memorialize the record of the prove-up hearing. And, Voila, you’re divorced.
The next question is: can the other party undo this process? The answer is: yes, within reason. If the other party has a legitimate reason why he couldn’t respond (such as he was in the hospital and didn’t know about the proceeding), then he can file a Motion to Set Aside Default Judgment. Now, he doesn’t have forever to do this. It must be done in a reasonable time and a reasonable fashion. At which point, you are back where you started, and he will have 20 days to file a responsive pleading to your Complaint for Divorce.
Divorce in Las Vegas 