How Long Does a Custody Battle Take in Colorado?
Most custody cases in Colorado take somewhere between six months and eighteen months. That range is wide because the answer has two halves. Part of your case runs on deadlines written into Colorado law, and those you can hold a court to. The rest runs on how the two of you behave, and that part has no deadline at all.
Almost every article on this question stops at the range. This one goes through the actual clocks.
What is the shortest a case can take?
Ninety-one days. That is the floor and nothing moves it.
Under , a Colorado court cannot enter a decree until ninety-one days or more have passed since it got jurisdiction over the other party. That happens when they are served, or when they join the petition, or when they otherwise enter an appearance.
So even if the two of you agree on everything, sign a parenting plan the same week, and file it immediately, the court still waits. That ninety-one days is a cooling-off period the legislature built in on purpose.
In practice, almost nobody finishes at ninety-one days. But it is worth knowing the number, because it tells you that nothing you do in the first three months will end the case faster.
Why do most cases take much longer?
Because agreement is rare at the start, and everything that follows disagreement takes time.
A case where both parents agree can close in three to five months. A case where they disagree about the schedule, but nothing else, usually lands around six to nine months. A case with a contested investigation, expert witnesses, or allegations that need checking, commonly runs twelve to eighteen months. Beyond that, you are usually looking at a case that has been appealed, restarted, or brought back to court on a new motion.
The thing that moves you between those bands is not the law. It is whether there is something a court needs someone else to find out.
What has an actual deadline?
Parenting time disputes do, and this is the most useful number in Colorado family law.
If the other parent is not following the parenting time order, you can file a verified motion. Under , the court then has thirty-five days to look at that motion and do one of three things. It can deny it, if what you alleged is not enough. It can set a hearing, and the statute says to do that as expeditiously as possible. Or it can send you both to mediation and require a report back within sixty-three days.
That is a real deadline on the court, not on you. Most parents never find out it exists.
The word verified matters. A verified motion is sworn. A letter of complaint, an email to your lawyer, or a phone call to the clerk does not start that clock. Our post on covers what that motion has to contain.
How long does an investigation add?
Usually three to six months, and it is the single biggest addition to a contested timeline.
When parents disagree about what has actually been happening to a child, the court often appoints a neutral third person to find out. In Colorado that is frequently a Child and Family Investigator. Natalie does this work.
governs these appointments. It says the report is timely when filed at least thirty-five days before the trial or hearing. That applies when the court order sets no due date of its own. So the report has a deadline tied to your hearing date, working backwards.
What takes the time is the work itself. An investigator reads both accounts, then checks them against sources neither parent controls. School records. Medical records. Teachers and coaches. The child, and how the child speaks. Scheduling those interviews around other people's calendars is most of the delay, and none of it is in anyone's control.
The same directive sets a presumptive maximum fee of three thousand two hundred and fifty dollars for the investigative and reporting work of a privately paid investigator. That cap matters to your timeline more than people expect. It defines how much work the appointment can reasonably cover. A court order asking a narrow set of questions moves faster than one asking for everything.
What makes a case take longer than it should?
Parent behaviour, almost every time. Here is what adds months, seen from the inside. Filing motions that go nowhere. Every motion needs a response and a ruling, and each round adds weeks. A motion that was never going to succeed still costs you the same calendar time as one that would.
Changing lawyers. New counsel has to read the whole file before they can do anything, and the court usually allows time for that. Missing or refusing appointments. When an investigator cannot reach you, the report waits. The case does not move while it waits.
Producing documents late, or in a mess. A file handed over in order can be reviewed in days. The same file as a thousand unsorted screenshots takes weeks, and that delay sits on the case, not on the person who made it.
Arguing about things the court cannot decide. Courts allocate parenting time and decision-making. They do not rule on who was a better spouse. Time spent on that is time the case stands still.
What makes a case go faster?
Agreeing on anything, in writing, as early as you can.
You do not have to agree on everything. Every single item you settle is one the court does not have to hear, and hearing time is the scarcest thing in the system. Parents who arrive having already agreed on the school, the holidays, and the exchange location often find the remaining dispute fits into a single hearing.
The second thing is documentation a third party can check. A dated record that school attendance confirms beats a long account of how the other parent made you feel. It also gets reviewed far faster. Our post on goes through what holds up and what does not.
The third is having a workable schedule ready. A parent who brings a specific proposal moves faster than one who brings a complaint. If you are not sure what to propose, sets out the common arrangements and who each one suits.
Does a longer case mean a better outcome?
No, and this is worth sitting with. Courts are looking at the child's best interests on the day they decide. A case that ran for two years does not produce a more favourable order than one that ran for eight months. What a long case does produce is a longer record, and that record includes how both parents behaved during it.
A parent whose file shows two years of motions, missed appointments and late disclosures has told the court something about themselves that no closing argument will undo. The length became part of the evidence.
Can you make the court move faster?
Only in the places where the law gives you a lever, and there are three.
You can file a verified motion on parenting time and start the thirty-five day clock. You can ask the court to set a hearing date, because once a date exists, everything else works backwards from it, including the investigator's report. And you can ask the court to narrow what it is deciding, which shortens hearings and reduces what needs investigating.
What you cannot do is make a court hear you sooner than its calendar allows. Court congestion is real and it is not personal.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a custody battle take on average? Most Colorado cases run six to eighteen months. Uncontested cases can close shortly after the ninety-one day statutory minimum. Contested cases involving an investigation usually run twelve months or more, because the investigation alone commonly adds three to six.
What is the shortest possible custody case in Colorado? Ninety-one days from the point the court gets jurisdiction over the other party. C.R.S. 14-10-106 bars a decree before then, even when both parents agree on everything and filed on the same day.
How long does a joint custody battle take? Usually less than a sole custody dispute. When both parents accept shared parenting, the argument is about the schedule rather than the principle. That leaves less for a court to investigate. Cases of that kind often close in six to nine months.
How long does the court have to respond to a parenting time violation? Thirty-five days from the filing of a verified motion. Under C.R.S. 14-10-129.5 the court must then deny it, set a hearing, or order mediation with a report back within sixty-three days.
Does hiring a lawyer make a custody case faster? Not by itself. Counsel usually helps by narrowing the dispute and producing clean disclosures, both of which save time. Changing lawyers partway through reliably costs time, because new counsel has to read the entire file first.
Where this leaves you
The parts of your case with deadlines are the parts you can push on. The parts without deadlines are the parts you control through your own conduct, and that is most of the calendar.
Heading into a contested case and want to know how your file will read to the person assessing it? That is the work we do. through a high conflict custody matter.
Disclaimer. This article is general information about Colorado law and court process. It is not legal advice and does not create a professional relationship. For advice about your own case, speak to a licensed Colorado family law attorney.
Sources
Colorado Revised Statutes section 14-10-106, Dissolution of marriage, legal separation. Colorado Revised Statutes section 14-10-129.5, Disputes concerning parenting time. Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Directive 04-08, Concerning Child and Family Investigators, amended effective 7 August 2024.