No-fault dissolution and the 91/91 rule, allocation of parental responsibilities and parenting time, income-shares child support, parentage, civil and extreme-risk protection orders, CDHS dependency and neglect cases, grandparent family time, and relocation under Spahmer — explained for self-represented litigants.
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The figures that shape how dissolution, parenting, support, and child welfare cases move through Colorado district court.
Colorado Income-Shares Model (estimate)
Colorado child support is calculated under the guidelines in C.R.S. § 14-10-115 using an income-shares approach that combines both parents' incomes. This tool gives a working estimate using a standard income-shares method — the official Schedule of Basic Child Support Obligations and your specific adjustments (overnights, health insurance, childcare) will change the real number.
Enter both gross monthly incomes, the number of children, and Parent A's overnight percentage to see a working estimate. The figure updates instantly — nothing you type here is sent or stored anywhere.
Colorado family law touches nearly every part of family life: dissolution of marriage, equitable distribution, spousal maintenance, allocation of parental responsibilities, child support, parentage, protection orders, CDHS abuse and neglect investigations, foster care and dependency, grandparent family time, and post-decree modifications. Whether it is a contested dissolution in Denver, a parenting dispute in El Paso County, a civil protection order in Boulder County, a parentage action in Arapahoe County, or a county dependency case in rural Colorado, the same theme runs through Colorado district court: balancing parental rights, child safety, financial support, and the best interests of the child.
A few things make Colorado different: a short 91-day residency requirement paired with a 91-day waiting period; pure no-fault dissolution; recognition of common-law marriage; the use of "allocation of parental responsibilities" instead of the word "custody"; the Spahmer rule that lets a parent state where they intend to live before initial orders; and a robust set of civil and extreme-risk (red flag) protection orders. The more you understand the structure of the system, the better prepared you are to ask the right questions, gather the right documents, and protect your children.
Colorado Court Accountability Center → How to file complaints against Colorado judges (Commission on Judicial Discipline), attorneys (Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel), and child and family investigators or legal representatives — with deadlines, templates, and step-by-step instructions, including how a judicial complaint differs from an appeal.
The core statutory rules every self-represented Colorado litigant should know before filing.
A Colorado divorce — formally a dissolution of marriage under the Uniform Dissolution of Marriage Act (Title 14, Article 10) — usually involves several major issues at once: ending the marriage, dividing property and debts, allocating parental responsibilities, setting child support, and sometimes spousal maintenance. Colorado is a purely no-fault state: the only ground is that the marriage is "irretrievably broken," and one spouse cannot block the dissolution by refusing to agree. To file, one spouse must have been a Colorado resident for 91 days, and a 91-day waiting period runs after the court gains jurisdiction before a decree can enter. The petition is filed in the district court of the county where either spouse lives.
When children are involved, parents complete mandatory financial disclosures, submit a parenting plan, and often attend mediation before a permanent-orders hearing. Colorado is an equitable distribution state under C.R.S. § 14-10-113: the court divides marital property and debts in a way that is fair — not automatically 50/50 — weighing each spouse's economic circumstances, contributions, and the value of separate property; marital misconduct is not considered. Colorado also recognizes common-law marriage, which requires the same dissolution process to end. A key practice point: filing the petition triggers an automatic temporary injunction that, among other things, bars removing the children from Colorado without consent or a court order.
Colorado does not use the word "custody." Instead, courts decide the allocation of parental responsibilities (APR) under C.R.S. § 14-10-124, which separates two distinct concepts. Parenting time is the schedule of when the child is with each parent (school weeks, weekends, holidays, exchanges, transportation). Decision-making responsibility is who makes major decisions about education, health care, mental health, and religion. Either can be allocated jointly or to one parent — and a parent can have substantial parenting time without sole decision-making, or share decisions even when the schedule is not equal.
Every APR decision is made under the best-interest-of-the-child standard, giving paramount consideration to the child's safety and physical, mental, and emotional needs. There is no gender presumption and no automatic 50/50 presumption; equal parenting time is ordered when it serves the child's best interests, not by default. The statute directs courts not to consider conduct that does not affect a party's relationship with the child, and in contested final-orders hearings the court must make findings on the record explaining why its allocation serves the child's best interests. In appropriate cases the court may appoint a Child and Family Investigator (CFI) or Parental Responsibilities Evaluator (PRE).
Colorado child support is calculated under the guidelines in C.R.S. § 14-10-115, using an income-shares model: both parents' gross monthly incomes are combined, the Schedule of Basic Child Support Obligations sets a baseline amount, and each parent pays a proportional share, with adjustments for overnights, work-related childcare, the children's portion of health insurance, and extraordinary expenses. The guideline schedule currently tops out at $30,000 of combined monthly income; above that, the court sets an appropriate amount.
Whether the sole-physical-care worksheet (Worksheet A) or the shared-physical-care worksheet (Worksheet B) applies depends on overnights — shared-care math kicks in when each parent has at least 93 overnights per year (about 25%). Guideline support is a rebuttable presumption the court can deviate from for good cause with written findings. Payments generally flow through the Family Support Registry (FSR), and an income withholding order usually takes effect within 14 days, with the employer remitting to the FSR.
Parentage is one of the most important family law issues for unmarried parents, and it is the gateway to enforceable parenting time and support. Colorado's Uniform Parentage Act recognizes several routes to legal parentage: a presumption arising from marriage or from holding the child out as one's own; a voluntary acknowledgment of parentage signed by both parents (often at the hospital); and a court determination using genetic testing. For unmarried parents, establishing parentage opens the door to an APR case where parenting time and decision-making can be set.
A useful protection in Colorado law: a request for genetic testing does not prejudice the requesting party in the allocation of parental responsibilities. And as with married parents, establishing parentage creates support rights and obligations, but parenting time and decision-making are decided separately under the best-interest standard — so an unmarried parent who wants enforceable parenting time generally needs to open an APR (or combined parentage/APR) case, not just confirm parentage.
Colorado civil protection orders are governed by Article 14 of Title 13. A person seeking protection from domestic abuse, stalking, sexual assault, or other threats can ask for a temporary (ex parte) protection order, generally effective for up to 14 days, and the court then holds a hearing to decide whether to make the order permanent. Protection orders can prohibit contact, exclude the respondent from a shared home, set firearm-related restrictions, and include temporary parenting provisions. A district court handling a dissolution can also issue protection orders within that case.
Colorado also has a separate Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO), or "red flag," process under Article 14.5, which allows a court to order the temporary surrender of firearms from a person found to pose a significant risk to self or others. This matters in family law because four of every five Colorado domestic-violence deaths from 2021 to 2024 involved a firearm. A protection order is a civil safety tool — it can reshape temporary parenting and possession of the home, but long-term parenting issues are usually decided in a separate domestic relations case, and the court cannot deny a protection order merely because a related case exists.
Colorado child welfare cases run through the Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS) and the county departments that handle assessments. Reports of suspected child abuse or neglect go to the statewide Colorado Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline at 1-844-CO-4-KIDS (1-844-264-5437), which routes concerns to the county responsible for responding; emergencies go to 911. Colorado is a mandatory-reporter state, and a report can lead to an assessment and, in serious cases, a dependency and neglect (D&N) petition.
These cases can intersect with family court in complicated ways — a parent may be handling a dissolution or APR case in one courtroom while the county pursues a D&N case in another. Know the difference: a private parenting dispute is between parents or relatives, while a D&N case involves the state and can lead to court-ordered treatment plans, removal, foster care, kinship placement, reunification, or, in the most serious cases, termination of parental rights. The vast majority of Colorado child-welfare assessments keep children safely at home while the family receives services, and parents in D&N cases generally have the right to court-appointed counsel. Document every contact, keep every paper, and treat the county case as its own track.
Colorado allows grandparents and great-grandparents to seek "family time" (visitation) under C.R.S. § 19-1-117, but only in specific circumstances. There must generally be an existing or prior child-custody case, or the parents' relationship must have been disrupted — for example, by divorce, legal separation, or the death of a parent. A grandparent cannot petition against an intact, two-parent family. Courts apply the best-interest standard while giving special weight to a fit parent's decisions, consistent with constitutional protections, and a grandparent generally may file only once every two years absent good cause. The pathway is real but narrow, designed to protect established grandparent-grandchild bonds without overriding fit parents.
Relocation is one of the most contested areas of Colorado family law, and the rules differ sharply depending on timing. Before initial orders, the Colorado Supreme Court's decision in Spahmer v. Gullette controls: the court must accept where each parent intends to live and then craft parenting time in the child's best interests — it cannot order a parent to stay in a particular place. After permanent orders, a parent who wants to relocate with the child must file a motion to modify parenting time under C.R.S. § 14-10-129, and the court weighs the statutory relocation factors, including the reasons for the move, the reasons for any objection, and the impact on the child's relationship with each parent.
The practical lesson: while a dissolution is pending, the automatic injunction bars removing the children from Colorado without consent or a court order, and after final orders you generally cannot relocate with the child without permission or a modification. Moving without following these rules can lead to contempt, a change in parenting time, or even abduction-prevention enforcement. Whether you are proposing or opposing a move, address it before the move, by motion.
Domestic violence can affect nearly every part of a Colorado family law case — parenting time, decision-making, exchanges, supervised visitation, protection orders, possession of the home, firearm restrictions, and parallel criminal proceedings. Under the APR statute, the court gives paramount consideration to the child's safety, and credible evidence of domestic violence or child abuse weighs heavily against mutual decision-making and unsupervised time. The numbers show why this matters: Colorado recorded 72 domestic-violence-related fatalities in 2024, a sharp increase, with firearms involved in roughly four out of five — which is part of why Colorado pairs civil protection orders with the extreme-risk (red flag) process.
Colorado family law also includes accountability issues involving judges, attorneys, Child and Family Investigators, and court staff. A bad ruling is not always misconduct, and a complaint is not the same thing as an appeal — judicial complaints are for judge conduct, appeals are for legal errors, recusal motions address whether a judge should hear the case, and CFI or evaluator concerns often must be raised in the active case first. The Colorado Court Accountability Center maps each of these processes — Commission on Judicial Discipline complaints, Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel discipline, recusal procedure, and CFI/PRE challenges — with step-by-step filing instructions and templates.
Some Colorado family law matters genuinely call for counsel — dependency and termination cases, contested relocations, complex equitable distribution with businesses or retirement accounts, interstate jurisdiction fights, and appeals among them. Others can be handled well by an organized self-represented parent, especially with the Colorado Judicial Branch's JDF self-help forms and the official child support calculator. Either way, the parent who understands the vocabulary, the deadlines, and the documents gets better outcomes: a represented client who can evaluate strategy, or a pro se litigant who files clean, rule-based motions. Colorado family law is not just about divorce — it is about children, safety, money, parenting rights, grandparents, unmarried parents, state intervention, and long-term family stability. The goal of this page is to help Colorado families identify which process fits their issue and prepare for the practical realities of district court.
Quick answers to the questions self-represented Colorado litigants ask most.
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