Wells Branch Divorce Lawyer | Travis County Cases, Heard in Downtown Austin
Wells Branch is unincorporated Travis County, so your divorce is filed with the Travis County District Clerk and heard downtown, not in Round Rock or Georgetown. SMB Law, PC handles divorce, custody, and support for Wells Branch families in those courts.
Serving Wells Branch Families in North Austin
Wells Branch is a close-knit north Austin community built around Mills Pond, the Katherine Fleischer Park, and the historic Wells Branch Homestead, and it has long been a favorite for young families and first-time buyers. Children here attend Round Rock ISD schools, including the Wells Branch Arts Integration Academy, so co-parenting schedules and school routines are usually front and center in the cases we handle.
Wells Branch sits in Travis County, which means your divorce is filed with the Travis County District Clerk and heard in the courts downtown, about 12 miles south of Wells Branch by I-35 or MoPac, roughly a 20 minute drive to our office. Phone and video meetings are available too. Call (512) 561-5003 for a free consultation with a Wells Branch divorce lawyer.
What Our Clients Say
Key Takeaway
- Wells Branch is unincorporated Travis County, not part of Round Rock or Pflugerville. Your case is filed with the Travis County District Clerk at 1700 Guadalupe Street in Austin. The filing fee is $350, the same with children or without. See our Texas divorce law overview for the statewide rules.
- The Travis County standing order binds both spouses the day the petition is filed. Unlike the Williamson County version used just up the road, it applies to modification suits as well as original filings, so the protections attach either way.
- Wells Branch is split between two school districts. Homes here fall in either Round Rock ISD or Pflugerville ISD, and the calendars differ. A parenting schedule has to name the right one, or the holiday exchanges will not line up.
Filing a Wells Branch Divorce in Travis County
Wells Branch is a census-designated place in Travis County, not a city. There is no Wells Branch city government, no Wells Branch court, and the addresses here are not part of Round Rock or Pflugerville even though both are minutes away. Your divorce is filed with the Travis County District Clerk’s Family Division, 1700 Guadalupe Street, 3rd Floor, Austin, Texas 78701.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. Neighbors in Round Rock file in Williamson County, which runs family cases under noticeably different rules. If you have been reading advice from a friend a mile north, some of it does not apply to you.
Before you can file, one spouse must have lived in Texas six months and in Travis County ninety days. The filing fee is $350, the same with children or without, and Texas requires a sixty day wait between filing and the day a judge can sign the decree. You do not need your spouse’s agreement to file. Texas grants divorces over an objection, and infidelity is a ground but not usually the deciding factor, as our page on how infidelity affects a Texas divorce explains.
The Travis County Standing Order
Travis County imposes a standing order in family cases the moment a petition is filed. Nobody asks a judge for it, it binds both spouses automatically, and it is enforceable by contempt.
It stops the conduct that wrecks cases early: draining accounts, selling or hiding property, canceling health or auto insurance, running up joint debt, harassing the other spouse, disparaging the other parent in front of the children, and removing the children from the State of Texas. Read that last one carefully. It is the state line, not the county line, and Wells Branch parents sometimes read it as a ban on driving to Round Rock.
Here is the advantage of being on this side of the county line. The Travis County order applies to modification suits as well as original filings. Williamson County’s, used by families a few minutes north, does not. If you are going back to court to change an existing custody or support order, filing in Travis County means those automatic protections attach the day you file. That is a real difference, and it is the kind of thing that decides whether a case starts calmly.
Whether your case is an uncontested divorce or a contested divorce, the standing order applies from filing forward, and we walk you through every clause before anything is signed.
Mediation in the Travis County Family Courts
If your case is contested, plan on mediating. Travis County judges generally expect it before they will give you a final trial setting, and Texas Family Code section 153.0071 gives them the authority to order it.
Understand what you are signing there. A mediated settlement agreement that meets the statute’s requirements is binding, and neither spouse can back out of it the next morning after sleeping on it. That protection cuts both ways, which is exactly why walking into mediation prepared matters more than walking in agreeable.
We run the numbers first, know where you can give and where you should hold, and make sure you leave with an agreement you understand. A truly agreed case usually skips mediation altogether.
How Long a Wells Branch Divorce Takes
Sixty days is the floor, not the average. An agreed Wells Branch case where everything is settled can finish shortly after that mark. A contested one runs six to twelve months once temporary orders, discovery, and mediation are in the picture, and longer where a business, a custody evaluation, or a genuine property fight is involved.
What drives the timeline is not the courthouse. It is how much the two of you disagree and how fast financial information gets produced. A spouse who turns over statements in two weeks shortens the case. A spouse who takes four months to produce one retirement statement lengthens it, and the meter runs the whole time.
Travis County also offers a collaborative divorce track, where both spouses and their attorneys commit in writing to settling without litigation. It works well for couples who can cooperate and poorly for couples who cannot, and we will tell you honestly which one you are.
Custody, Support, and Property for Wells Branch Families
Texas separates two things most people call custody. Conservatorship is the decision rights over school, medical care, and psychiatric treatment. Possession and access is the calendar. A parent can share full decision-making and still hold the smaller share of overnights.
Texas Family Code section 153.131(b) presumes joint managing conservatorship, and the parent asking a judge to depart from it carries the burden. The default calendar is the Standard Possession Order, and under section 153.3171 a parent living within fifty miles of the child can elect the expanded version, which turns Thursday evenings into overnights and runs weekends from Friday after school to Monday morning. From Wells Branch, an ex in north Austin, Round Rock, or Pflugerville is comfortably inside that fifty mile line.
One local wrinkle that matters here: Wells Branch is split between Round Rock ISD and Pflugerville ISD. The two districts do not share a calendar. An order that says school holidays follow the child’s district without naming which one invites an argument every December. We name it in the order. Our full family law practice covers custody, support, and modifications alike.
How Child Support Is Actually Calculated
Guideline child support under section 154.125 is a percentage of the paying parent’s monthly net resources: twenty percent for one child, twenty-five for two, thirty for three, rising from there. Net resources are not take-home pay. The calculation starts from all income, then subtracts federal income tax at the single-filer rate, Social Security, union dues, and the children’s health and dental coverage.
The percentage applies only up to a statutory cap on net resources that the Texas Attorney General adjusts every six years. Income above that cap does not automatically produce more support. Support is also separate from the medical and dental support ordered alongside it, and it does not cover college, club sports, or a car at sixteen. If those matter to you, they have to be negotiated into the decree.
The House, the Retirement Accounts, and the Debt
Texas presumes everything either spouse holds at divorce is community property. Rebutting that for a specific asset takes clear and convincing evidence, which usually means tracing it to an inheritance, a gift, or something owned before the marriage. Statements and closing documents carry that burden. Recollection does not.
The house is the biggest item in most Wells Branch divorces. If one spouse keeps it, the other typically comes off the mortgage through a refinance and gets bought out of the equity, often with an owelty lien securing the payment. Skip that step and the spouse who moves out stays liable on a loan for a house they no longer own.
Retirement accounts split by a qualified domestic relations order, a separate order the plan administrator must approve. A decree that divides the 401(k) but is never followed by a QDRO leaves the money where it sat. Debt divides too, and a decree does not bind a credit card company: a joint card left open in both names keeps both names on the hook. Our child custody page covers the parenting side in more depth.
Spousal Maintenance Under Texas Law
Texas is stingier here than most states. Under Texas Family Code section 8.051, the most common route to court-ordered maintenance is a marriage of ten years or longer where the requesting spouse cannot meet minimum reasonable needs. Section 8.054 caps the duration by length of marriage: five years at ten to twenty, seven years at twenty to thirty, ten years at thirty and above.
Section 8.055 caps the monthly amount at the lesser of $5,000 or twenty percent of the paying spouse’s average monthly gross income. Long-married clients are often surprised by that ceiling, and it is better to hear it at the first meeting.
Contractual alimony is different. Spouses can agree to terms a judge could not order, and in the right case that agreement is the cleaner answer.
Modifying an Order in Travis County
Section 156.101 sets the bar: a material and substantial change in circumstances plus a showing that the change serves the child’s best interest. A move, a new job, a remarriage, or a schedule that stopped fitting as the kids got older can all qualify. Preferring a different outcome than the one you agreed to does not.
Two timing rules trip people up. Under section 156.102, a suit filed within one year of the order to change which parent designates the child’s primary residence needs a supporting affidavit meeting specific statutory grounds, and without it the court denies it without a hearing. Under section 156.401, support can generally be modified after three years if the guideline amount would differ by twenty percent or one hundred dollars.
The good news for Wells Branch: because the Travis County standing order reaches modifications, the automatic protections attach when you file. Our modification page covers the process in more detail.
Working With Our Wells Branch Divorce Lawyer
Shane M. Boasberg founded SMB Law, PC in Austin and has practiced Texas family law for more than twenty years. He was selected to Texas Monthly Rising Stars in 2012 and again from 2014 through 2016, and he is a member of the Austin Bar Association. Our office is downtown, a few minutes from the courthouse where Wells Branch cases are heard.
He also appears regularly in Williamson and Hays counties, which matters more than it sounds for a neighborhood on a county line. If your spouse moves to Round Rock mid-case, or the children’s other parent files in Georgetown, you are not starting over with a new firm.
You Get the Attorney You Hired
At a larger firm the attorney who takes your consultation is often not the one standing up at the hearing. That is not how this office runs. Shane Boasberg handles the case he is hired for from the first meeting through the final decree, and Wells Branch clients deal with him directly rather than routing every question through staff.
Practically, that means a straight answer on the phone instead of a callback three days later, and the person arguing your temporary orders already knows why the exchange time matters to your schedule.
Straight Answers About Likely Outcomes
A lawyer who tells you everything is winnable is selling you something. We would rather say early that the schedule you want is a stretch in front of this particular judge, or that the separate-property claim on the down payment will not survive without the closing statement, than take the retainer and deliver that news in month eight.
Every case gets an honest read on what the law supports, what the evidence supports, and what it will cost to chase the gap between the two. Then the decision is yours.
Honest Talk About Cost
Nobody can quote you a divorce price on the first phone call, and any firm that does is guessing. Court fees are fixed at $350 plus service costs. Attorney time is not, and it scales almost entirely with how much the two of you disagree.
Two Wells Branch spouses who settle the house and the parenting schedule between them spend a fraction of what two spouses who litigate every issue spend. Discovery, temporary orders, a custody evaluation, and a contested trial each add real cost, and we tell you at the outset which of those your case is likely to need.
Getting to the Courthouse Downtown
Travis County family filings go through the District Clerk’s Family Division at 1700 Guadalupe Street, 3rd Floor, and hearings are held in the courthouse complex downtown. From Wells Branch that is I-35 south into the middle of town, twenty minutes on a good morning and considerably more at rush hour.
Downtown parking is paid, limited, and a common reason people arrive late. Being late to a docket call is not a neutral event. If you have never been to the building, we tell clients where to park and where to meet before the first setting rather than leaving them to work it out at a quarter to nine.
Contact Our Wells Branch Divorce Legal Firm
The first call is a conversation, not a commitment. Bring what you have and our Wells Branch divorce lawyer will tell you what would actually be done with it. Call SMB Law, PC at (512) 561-5003.
More ways we help Wells Branch families: contested divorce, uncontested divorce, child custody, child support, modifications, and high net worth divorce.
Wells Branch is one of those places where the map and the mailing address disagree. You are in Travis County even though Round Rock and Pflugerville are minutes away, your children may be in either of two school districts, and the standing order that governs your case is the Travis County one, which unlike Williamson County’s follows you into a modification. Getting those three things straight before anything is filed is where we start with every Wells Branch client who calls.
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Questions Wells Branch Clients Ask Us Most
What grounds do I need to file in Texas?
Almost every Texas divorce is filed on insupportability, the no-fault ground, which means the marriage has become insupportable because of discord that destroys the legitimate ends of the marriage. Nobody has to prove anyone did anything wrong. Fault grounds exist too, including cruelty, adultery, abandonment, and living apart for at least three years, and pleading one can matter for property division in the right case. It is not free, though. Fault grounds have to be proved, which lengthens and sharpens a case. Our divorce attorney will tell you whether it is worth it in yours.
What's the difference between legal separation and divorce?
Texas has no legal separation. Living apart changes nothing about your legal position: income earned while separated is still community property, debts run up by either spouse can still be community debts, and neither of you has an enforceable right to possession of the children without a court order. Couples who need structure while they decide can get temporary orders in a filed case, which is a real remedy rather than an informal arrangement. That is the practical substitute, and we explain how it works before you commit to anything.
Can I change my name back in the divorce?
Yes, and it is far cheaper now than later. Texas Family Code section 6.706 directs the court to restore a party’s prior name on request in the divorce itself. Ask for it in the petition and the decree carries the change, which is all the Social Security Administration, the DMV, and your bank need. Skip it and you are looking at a separate name change suit with its own filing fee and hearing. It is the item our Wells Branch divorce lawyer sees forgotten more than any other in an otherwise finished decree.
Does it matter which spouse files first?
Less than people think, and not nothing. Filing first gives no advantage on custody or property, and Travis County judges do not favor petitioners. What it controls is county and timing. It fixes the case in Travis County before a spouse who is about to move to Round Rock can file in Williamson, it starts the sixty day clock, and it puts the standing order in place on your schedule rather than theirs. In a case where one spouse is quietly moving money, that timing is the whole ballgame. In an amicable case it barely matters.
Does infidelity change what I receive?
Sometimes, but less than people expect. Texas courts divide the community estate in a manner they find just and right, and a court may consider fault in that division. What moves the needle in practice is usually money rather than betrayal: community funds spent on an affair can support a claim for waste, and that claim is proved with statements and receipts. Infidelity by itself rarely changes a custody outcome unless it affected the children. Our page on how infidelity affects a Texas divorce goes further.
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