Virginia's legislature recently finished its work for the year and made some significant changes to divorce law. Here are the legislature's official summaries of the bills enacted this session, with links to the complete texts and legislative histories.
HB 282 Divorce or annulment; revocation of death benefits. For more information see our recent blog posting, "Virginia legislature addresses beneficiary-designation mess."
HB 126 Affidavits; use in no-fault divorce cases. For more information see our recent blog posting, "New Virginia law allows uncontested divorce without court hearing statewide, but some of us already do that."
HB 677 Power of attorney; termination. Provides that an agent's authority under a power of attorney terminates by operation of law if either the agent or principal file an action for separate maintenance from the other or for custody or visitation of a child in common with the other.
HB 104 / SB 60 Divorce; failure to respond by defendant. Provides that if a defendant fails to file an answer in a divorce suit or otherwise appear after having been personally served with notice of the suit, no additional notice to take depositions is required to be served on the defendant and the court may enter any order or final decree without notice to the defendant. As introduced, this bill was a recommendation of the Boyd-Graves Conference. This bill is identical to SB 60.
HB 635 Equitable distribution; change of venue. Provides that, upon or after the entry of a final divorce decree, a court may, upon its own motion or the motion of any party, transfer to the circuit court for the county or city where either party resides the authority to make additional orders to effectuate or enforce an equitable distribution award made in the decree or a stipulation, contract, or agreement that has been affirmed, ratified, and incorporated in the decree.
HB 272 Death, marriage, or divorce records; changes time period before becomes public. Reduces the time period after which death, marriage, divorce, or annulment records become public from 50 years to 25 years.