• Ending a marriagering image by Jens Klingebiel from Fotolia.com
  
  The residency rules for Ohio divorce filings are typical of most states in the United States. A person has to have lived in Ohio for a certain amount of time in order to be able to file for a divorce in any county of the state. Particular counties have residency requirements of at least 90 days. These time periods must immediately precede the filing.
  
  

Required Residence

• The Ohio Domestic Relations Code states that a person can file for divorce or annulment in Ohio after having resided there for at least 6 months before commencing the suit. The complaint for divorce has to state that the person has resided in Ohio for that time period. If it does not, the court cannot take the case.
  
  

Venue

• Venue is the legal word describing which county in which to file a suit at law. The Ohio Domestic Relations Code is the Ohio Statute for venue in divorce and annulment actions. The Rules of Civil Procedure say that the plaintiff must file for divorce in the county in which the plaintiff has resided for "at least 90 days immediately preceding the filing of the complaint."
  
  So while the plaintiff might have lived in Ohio for 6 months, she might have moved to another county and would have to wait until she had lived in the new county for 90 days before being able to file for divorce in the new county.
  
  

Where the Other Spouse Resides

• According to the Ohio Domestic Relations Code, it does not matter where the other spouse--the one who would be the defendant in the suit--resides. The marriage does not have to have taken place in Ohio either.
  
  The 21 sections referenced in this statute involve most questions that arise with regard to divorce, such as reconciliation, separation agreements, equitable division of property, spousal support, child custody and child support.
  
  

Residence of Defendant Spouse is Unknown

• If the plaintiff in a divorce action does not know where the defendant spouse resides, there is still a way to serve notice of the divorce action on her.
  
  Service by publication in a newspaper is a legal fiction, meaning that it is assumed that people will check public notices in places where they have had dealings of any kind, and that they check the publication notices, in some cases printed in newspapers or, in the case of the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure, a posting at a "conspicuous place in the courthouse." Thus the court rules provide that giving notice of legal matters, including divorce suits, in such newspapers gives defendants notice they have been sued.
  
  This method of service is not available unless the conditions in the statute apply; these are where the defendant's residence is "unknown, or if the defendant is not a resident of this state or is a resident of this state but absent from the state." The complaint must then state that the plaintiff does not know where the defendant resides, or that the defendant does not reside in Ohio, or that the defendant resides in Ohio but is absent from Ohio.