Posted on July 12, 2015 in Annulments

A marriage must meet certain requirements to be valid. These requirements, as well as the circumstances under which a marriage may be determined to be invalid, are outlined in the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act. For example, if a couple married when one of the parties was under the influence of drugs or alcohol or otherwise unable to consent to the marriage, the marriage may not be considered to be valid. Another reason why a marriage might be deemed to be invalid is if one of the parties was already married to another individual when the wedding ceremony was performed or one of the parties somehow lied about his or her identity, causing the other partner to marry him or her under false pretenses. If a minor married without parental consent, that marriage, too, may be deemed to be invalid. When a couple's marriage is invalid, they may end it through a process known as annulment. Getting an annulment is not the same as getting a divorce. When a couple divorces, their legal, valid marriage is dismantled. When a couple gets an annulment, their marriage is wiped from the record as if it had never occurred.

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 Posted on June 26, 2015 in Paternity

If you think you might have a biological child, you need to establish your paternity of that child in order to gain any rights regarding him or her. These rights include the right to seek custody or visitation with your child, the right to seek child support for his or her care, and your obligation to financially support him or her until he or she is an adult. When you establish paternity, you become the child's legal father. This and other laws related to paternity and parents' rights in Illinois are included in the Illinois Parentage Act of 1984.

In Illinois, an alleged father can establish his paternity by signing the child's birth certificate when the child is born. This is accompanied by a Voluntary Acknowledgment of Paternity form, which both parents need to date and sign. A man can also establish paternity through an Order of Paternity or an Administrative Paternity Order, both of which are ordered by the court.

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 Posted on June 25, 2015 in Divorce

Marrying or cohabitating with a new partner after your divorce is finalized changes your financial circumstances, which can lead to a change in your spousal maintenance or child custody arrangements. It may affect your relationship with your child, necessitating a change to your child custody agreement.

This does not mean you should not seek a new relationship after your divorce. What is important is that you understand how a new relationship can affect your divorce settlement before you enter one. If you are currently receiving spousal maintenance payments or anticipate seeking this support during your divorce, keep in mind that remarrying will terminate your right to receive maintenance from your first spouse.

Talk to your attorney about the ways entering a new relationship will affect your divorce settlement while you work through the divorce process. Do not underestimate the impact that a new relationship can have on your relationship with your former spouse. Entering a new relationship before your divorce is finalized is adultery and can stir up emotions that make it impossible to work through a mediation or collaborative divorce with your spouse.

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 Posted on June 25, 2015 in Child Custody

When two individuals who have children of their own marry, they become what is known as a blended family. Over the past few decades, blended families have become more and more common in the United States. Today, in approximately 40 percent of married couples, at least one spouse has a child from a previous relationship.

Blended families often face challenges that traditional families do not. These challenges come from clashing parenting styles, scheduling around each partner’s custody agreement with his or her former spouse, and the emotions toward the divorce and new partner from the children.

Adjusting to a newly-formed household and its routine is challenging for all members of the family. How each child copes with this change can depend greatly on all of the following factors:

• The child’s relationship with his or her remarried parent;
• The child’s relationship with his or her parent’s new spouse;

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 Posted on June 25, 2015 in Child Support

NOTE: A new law defining how child support is calculated in Illinois goes into effect in July 2017. For more information, please visit our Child Support page.

When a couple with a child divorces, they need to determine appropriate agreements for the child’s care after the divorce. This is accomplished with two agreements: one for child support and one for child custody. Child custody is the agreement about where the child will live and how the parents will make decisions about raising him or her while child support is the agreement for the noncustodial parent to regularly pay money to the custodial parent. These payments are to cover the costs associated with raising their child.

There are multiple factors that play into a couple’s child support agreement. These factors are discussed in the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act. Like the factors that the court uses to determine spousal maintenance agreements, there is no one factor that outweighs the others when the court makes child support determinations. Instead, the weight each factor carries depends on the individual couple’s circumstances and their child’s needs.

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 Posted on June 05, 2015 in Divorce

Before divorcing, many couples who choose to end their marriages legally separate. There is a variety of reasons why a couple would opt to legally separate rather than going straight for a divorce.

For some couples, the separation is somewhat of a trial divorce. If the couple knows their marriage is not working, but is unsure about whether a divorce is the best choice, they might choose to separate and take the time apart to work out their issues, both independently and together. This may include individual or couples therapy sessions, but it is not a requirement. How a couple chooses to interact and whether they choose to resolve their issues after separating is entirely at their discretion.

For other couples, legally separating prior to divorcing is a way to save money. Rather than going through expensive litigation to divide their property and determine their child support, custody, and spousal maintenance agreements, couples take this time to slowly work through agreements for these issues. They might opt to do so through mediation or through a collaborative agreement.

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 Posted on June 03, 2015 in Alimony / Maintenance

Before you begin the divorce process, it is important that you understand all the components that come with a divorce. In addition to dividing your property and assets and working out custody and support agreements for your children, you might be curious about spousal maintenance. Spousal maintenance is discussed in the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act.

Spousal maintenance, also known as alimony, is the payment plan that the court sets up to create a financial safety net for the lesser-earning spouse after a couple divorces. When an individual sacrifices his or her career by taking less rigorous work or opting out of the workforce altogether to focus on the couple's children and household, he or she is at a significant disadvantage when the couple divorces.

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 Posted on May 29, 2015 in Divorce

When many parents imagine child abductors, they think of strangers attempting to lure children into their vehicles or away from their parents in public spaces. However, the statistics collected and reported by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children paint a much different picture. In the most recent study of missing children in the United States, only 115 were victims of what's considered to be a “stereotypical kidnapping.” More than 200,000 of the approximate total of 800,000 were taken by family members. Any noncustodial parent who takes his or her child from the custodial parent and keeps the child beyond his or her court-approved parenting time may be charged with child abduction. Child abduction is a serious offense that can result in fines, probation, and jail time for a guilty parent. This is included in Chapter 720 of the Illinois Criminal Code.

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 Posted on May 27, 2015 in Divorce

When a couple chooses mediation for their divorce, they are choosing to forgo traditional litigation in favor of creating their own settlement with help from a mediator, considered a form of alternative dispute resolution. A mediator is a neutral third party who is trained to help divorcing couples work through their issues and reach a settlement that fits both of their needs. Many couples who choose mediation report higher levels of satisfaction with their settlement and better relations with each other after the divorce than couples who choose traditional litigation.

But mediation is not the right choice for everybody. Sometimes, a couple's personal circumstances make them unable to work together openly and honestly. If a couple cannot do this, they cannot have a successful mediation.

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 Posted on May 22, 2015 in Divorce

Bankruptcy can happen to anybody. If you lose your job, fall victim to an illness or accident, your small business fails, or you simply accumulate too much personal debt on your credit cards, bankruptcy can be the only way to regain control of your finances. Filing for bankruptcy requires you to work with the court to repay your debts. This process differs according to the chapter of bankruptcy you file, but it basically requires you to surrender control of your spending and assets to the court-ordered trustee assigned to your case. When you are working through a repayment or liquidation plan, it can be difficult to make your required child support payments. Your child support obligation cannot be eliminated by filing for bankruptcy, no matter how dire your financial situation becomes. However, it is possible to have your required payments lowered. If you are facing financial difficulty and can not make your payments, consider seeking a modification to your support order.

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