No. The six month residency requirement people associate with Georgia divorce cases does not apply to a separate maintenance action.
Where the Six Months Comes From
OCGA 19-5-2 is a divorce statute. It provides that “[n]o court shall grant a divorce to any person who has not been a bona fide resident of this state for six months before the filing of the petition for divorce.”
Nothing comparable appears in OCGA 19-6-10, the statute authorizing separate maintenance. What that statute asks about is the parties’ separation and the absence of a pending divorce, not how long anyone has lived here.
A Court Declined to Add One
Chalfant v. Rains, 244 Ga. 747 (1979), settles the point. A woman who had divorced her husband in South Carolina, where alimony was never decided because that court lacked jurisdiction over him, later sued him for alimony in Fulton County. She lived in Illinois. He claimed Colorado residency, though he was personally served while in Fulton County.
The trial court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. The Georgia Supreme Court reversed, holding that “[t]he legislature has established a statutory residency requirement of six months before divorce proceedings can be brought, but has not extended this requirement to alimony proceedings. We refuse to do so now.”
The Court also confirmed that “[a]n alimony proceeding need not be ancillary to a divorce proceeding to be valid.”
What Still Matters
Residency is not the requirement, but service is. In Chalfant, what gave the Georgia court power over the husband was that he was personally served while physically in the state.
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