Divorce temporary orders are the rules a Texas court sets while your case is pending. They can cover support for either spouse, the house, spending limits, a sworn inventory and attorney’s fees (§6.502). A judge sets them at a hearing after notice to your spouse, and they last until the final decree replaces them.
Why temporary orders exist
A contested divorce takes months. The mortgage, the children and the bills do not wait. Temporary orders fill that gap with rules both of you must follow until the decree is signed.
The 60-day waiting period confuses people. The court cannot grant the divorce before the 60th day after filing (§6.702), so the earliest the divorce can be granted is about 61 days after filing. That wait applies to the divorce itself, not to temporary orders. The court can make those at any point while a contested Texas divorce is pending, after notice to the other spouse and a hearing (§6.502(a)).
The nine orders a court can make under §6.502
Section 6.502(a) lets the court order any of the following, on either spouse’s motion or on its own:
- A sworn inventory and appraisement, a signed list of everything you own and owe, with values
- Payments for the support of either spouse
- Production of books, papers, documents and records
- Payment of reasonable attorney’s fees and expenses
- A receiver, a neutral person appointed to hold and protect property
- Exclusive occupancy of the home for one spouse
- A limit on spending beyond reasonable and necessary living expenses
- Exclusive control of a business or occupation for one spouse
- An order prohibiting any act listed in §6.501
The list is not closed. The same section lets the court grant a temporary injunction, an order telling one or both spouses not to do something, and any other order needed to preserve property and protect the parties.
Item nine points to §6.501. Once the petition is filed, that section lets a court issue a temporary restraining order without notice to the other spouse, covering things like threats, harassment, hurting the other spouse or a child, hiding or moving property, and falsifying financial records (§6.501(a)). An order made without the other side present is only the opening move. The hearing with both of you there decides which rules stay.
What is a temporary order hearing
A temporary orders hearing is short. The judge decides which of the orders above to make and on what terms. Compared with a final trial it is light on evidence. Each spouse usually testifies, a few exhibits such as pay stubs, bank statements and a proposed budget come in, and the judge often rules from the bench the same day.
Two things surprise people. It usually comes early, before discovery, the formal exchange of documents, so the judge works from a thin file. And the judge is not dividing the estate, only setting rules for the months until the decree.
Prepare anyway. Bring the paper behind each request: your income and a written monthly budget for support, the mortgage or lease for the house, the statements that show the problem for a spending limit. A request with documents behind it is easier to grant quickly than one that rests on testimony alone.
Agreed temporary orders and mediation
You do not have to have the hearing. Many temporary orders are agreed, between the lawyers or at mediation, and the judge can sign the agreed order without a contested hearing. The question at a temporary-orders mediation is narrow, only what happens between now and the decree, and that is often easier to settle.
A court can also send you to mediation on its own motion while your motion for temporary orders is pending. If it does, it cannot push the first hearing more than 30 days past the date originally set (§6.502(a-1)). A court-ordered mediation can delay the hearing by a month at most. It cannot shelve it.
In the temporary-orders mediations I run, I act as a neutral, not as either spouse’s lawyer.
If you have children
Children need rules now too, and a separate section covers them. Texas Family Code §105.001 lets the court make temporary orders for a child’s safety and welfare: temporary custody (in Texas, conservatorship), temporary child support, a limit on taking the child outside an area the court names, and attorney’s fees. It also lets the court change an earlier temporary order.
What happens after temporary orders
They stay in force until the final decree replaces them. They do not expire at the 60-day mark, and they do not become the decree on their own. Nothing in them is permanent, but expect them to set the pattern. The spouse who has the house now will argue to keep it at the decree. The support figure becomes a starting point for later negotiation.
The next step
Write down the things that cannot wait until the decree: the house, support, a spending limit, the records you need from your spouse. Then pick a route. Propose those terms to the other side as an agreed order before the hearing date, or bring the paper and ask the judge. Either way the request reaches the court as a motion, and the other spouse must have notice before the court rules (§6.502(a)).
