Can I Change the Locks on My Spouse During a Divorce?
Physically, yes. Legally, changing the locks is risky and usually doesn’t hold up. Without a temporary order or a Motion for Exclusive Possession already granted, your spouse can call the police, and the responding officers will typically ask whether you have a court order. If you don’t, they may ask you to let your spouse back in and undo the lock change.
What Happens If I Change the Locks Anyway?
Best case, nothing happens because your spouse doesn’t push back. Worst case, several things can happen at once, beyond the police simply asking you to undo the lock change.
Your spouse can also go to family court and ask the judge for an emergency order restoring them to the home. Judges tend not to look kindly on a spouse who tried to resolve issues themselves instead of asking the court first. Judges call this “self-help” and don’t love it when clients are making decisions that are the judge’s job.
Self-help removal can be used against you later, too: it can support a request for attorney’s fees against you, and if the judge sees a pattern of one spouse trying to control the marital home by force rather than by motion, it can color how that judge views your credibility on other contested issues in the case, including custody.
Can I Call the Police to Remove My Spouse?
Only if you already have a court order. You will need a court order (which could be an order from a Temporary Motion or Temporary Protective Order) excluding your spouse from the residence.
Without one, calling the police to remove your spouse from a home they have a legal right to occupy generally won’t work; officers will typically ask for the order, and if you don’t have one, they may simply keep the peace rather than remove anyone. This is the same principle behind why you can’t just change the locks, the court order has to come first.
Is a Spouse Voluntarily Moving Out Considered Abandonment?
Abandonment is an urban myth that spouses believe gives them a legal advantage. Abandonment is a very old law that obligated the husband to continue being financially responsible for his wife. This is from a time in history when women didn’t work or didn’t own property. This law is still on the books, but no longer enforced. The abandonment law has been abandoned! Your spouse abandoning you and the house isn’t illegal. The abandonment doesn’t give you more ownership in the home.
Abandonment might not give you more ownership in the home, but it might give you a good legal argument for your spouse to stay out of the home. Nevada law doesn’t hand you the house simply because your spouse left. But if your spouse voluntarily moves out, takes their belongings, and stays away for a meaningful stretch of time, two things tend to follow. Courts are far more approving of your changing the locks. And the judge is more willing to grant you exclusive possession of the property.
Can My Spouse Move Back In After Leaving Voluntarily?
Possibly, unless there’s a court order preventing it. Voluntarily moving out doesn’t waive your spouse’s underlying right to the home, it just weakens their practical argument against you if you seek exclusive possession or change the locks.
If you want to lock in the current arrangement so your spouse cannot waltz back into the home whenever they choose, get a Motion for Exclusive Possession to convert the voluntary moving out into a court order.
The Right Way to Lock In the Arrangement
The legal way to remove a spouse is to ask the court, not change the locks. Review our article on Can I Evict My Spouse in Nevada to learn what you can or cannot do to get a spouse out of the home.
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