Our Pittsburgh lawyers have been advised that the filing fees for various family law matters will increase on Tuesday, March 6, 2012. This fee increase raises the cost for certain filings with the Allegheny County Department of Court Records as the result of an Administrative Order of Court.
Included among the raises are three dollar increases for filing Divorce Complaints, Custody Complaints, Protection from Abuse and Paternity Testing. New Petitions for Custody Contempt have gone up ten dollars. There has also been a fifty dollar increase for Petitions to Modify Custody.
The Family Division is not the only section that has been affected locally. There have also been fee increases for various matters in the Criminal and Civil Divisions as well as Wills/Orphans Court.
Note that these are the first fee increases for the county since the filing fees were last raised on December 8, 2009. Also, there are plenty of fees which remain unchanged. For example the fees for a Praecipe to Transmit the Record at the end of a divorce case, a Petition to Resume Maiden/Prior Name, and additional copies of a Divorce Decree or Certificate of Name Change remain the same.
Overall, these fees are nominal and should not place any extra burdens on litigants. Remember that for the most part these are fees that are only paid one time, usually at the beginning of new matter.
