Posted on February 05, 2020 in High Asset Divorce

If you are a business owner who is getting divorced, you will need to conduct a professional valuation of your business. A business is a marital property if you started or purchased it during your marriage. Even if you have owned the business since before you were married, it may have become marital property because you invested personal assets into it. Business valuations are complicated because there are multiple approaches to valuation and several aspects of a business that you must consider when calculating its value. There are three general approaches to business valuation, each with their own strengths:

1. Income-Based Approach: The most popular method of business valuation, this approach values a business based on the earnings that it is able to generate. The business appraiser looks at the business’s past earnings and projects the future earnings, based on trends and accounting for risks.

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 Posted on January 31, 2020 in Children and Divorce

Communicating with your co-parent after a divorce can feel uncomfortable, even if you did not separate on bad terms. You need to stay in contact with each other to discuss issues related to your children. For some parents, having a child act as a messenger seems like a natural solution to the problem. After all, your child sees both of you regularly. However, any parenting expert will tell you that using your child as a messenger for your parenting discussions is unhealthy for them, no matter how old they are or mature they may seem.

Problems

Asking your child to deliver a message to your co-parent is forcing them to become a player in your co-parenting drama. You may think that it is benign to send a simple message, such as that you will be late in picking up the children next week. By tasking your child to deliver a message:

• They receive your co-parent’s negative reaction to the news and perceive that the reaction is directed towards them

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 Posted on January 29, 2020 in Divorce

Someone who has a greater income than his or her spouse can have an advantage during a divorce. If each spouse is left with only their individual resources, the wealthier spouse would be able to hire a more expensive lawyer, pay for other advisers, and better afford a prolonged legal battle. Illinois tries to level the playing field during a divorce by allowing someone to request interim attorney fees and costs from their spouse if they cannot afford these expenses. This divorce tool is a financial boon or burden, depending on which side of the court order you are on.

Receiving Interim Fees

As the name suggests, you will file for interim attorney fees and costs while the case is still ongoing. This request is strictly meant to pay for your legal fees related to your divorce. If you need help paying for your living expenses, you need to file for temporary spousal maintenance. When deciding whether to grant interim attorney fees, the court will consider:

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 Posted on January 27, 2020 in Divorce

Divorce has long involved people who are self-employed, such as business owners. Today, more people are making a living as independent contractors and freelancers, which is also self-employment. Having a spouse who is self-employed makes it more difficult to identify their income and properties for the purpose of divorce. This information is necessary when calculating spousal maintenance and child support. If you are divorcing someone who is self-employed, you need to be thorough in collecting and evaluating their financial records to make sure they are not hiding anything from you.

Collecting Information

When your spouse is employed by another person or business, their tax returns should accurately show their income because their employer is reporting it to the IRS. People who are self-employed are responsible for reporting their own income for tax purposes, which means that they could potentially underreport their income. You need to piece together your spouse’s various income sources by requesting:

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 Posted on January 25, 2020 in Divorce

One of the films nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards this year is “Marriage Story,” which is about a couple with a young son going through an emotional divorce. The divorce lawyers for each side play a prominent role in the film, shining a light on the legal process. Divorce is a common source of conflict for filmmakers wanting to portray a family drama. “Kramer vs. Kramer” won the award for Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 1979. While movies have helped form the public perception of divorce, it is important to understand that your divorce will be different than the stories you see portrayed on screen:

1. Divorce Is Not All About Drama: Divorce in a movie often includes dramatic announcements and heated arguments because that is what makes the most compelling story. These things can occur in a real divorce, but your divorce can be peaceful and cooperative if that is what you both want. Most of the “drama” you will experience will be internal as you mourn the end of your marriage and wonder what the future will hold for you.

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 Posted on January 22, 2020 in Child Custody

Divorce in the U.S. has changed in many ways during the last decade. The divorce rate has settled down from the boom the country experienced in the 1970s. Millennials, who were the children of many of those divorces, are waiting longer to get married and start a family. Divorce has also become more amicable because of the rising use of conflict resolution methods such as mediation and collaborative divorce. Women have increasing power during the process and are less likely to be financially dependent upon men. However, men have also seen increased benefits from divorce, thanks to that same trend towards gender equality.

Father’s Rights

The presumption used to be that the mother would have most of the control over the children after a divorce because the mother was the primary caretaker in the family. Fathers would typically have less decision-making power, and equal parenting time was practically unheard of. Now, courts see the importance of both divorced parents having a major role in raising their children. This means that courts:

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 Posted on January 19, 2020 in High Asset Divorce

A couple in a high asset divorce has more at stake in the division of property – and more to lose if they make a mistake. A poorly conceived divorce agreement could cost you a small fortune in lost or squandered assets. Once the agreement is approved, you will not get a do-over unless you can prove that your spouse intentionally deceived you during your divorce or you signed the agreement under duress. To avoid having remorse over your high asset divorce, you should do your best to get your agreement right the first time.

Dig Deep

The main way that a high asset divorce is different from other divorces is the number and variety of marital properties. You need to thoroughly investigate your spouse’s finances to see whether there are hidden assets, such as:

• Undisclosed bank accounts
• Marital assets within a business

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 Posted on January 12, 2020 in Children and Divorce

Children can be unpredictable when it comes to how they will react to major events, such as their parents getting divorced. You like to think that you know your child well enough to be able to anticipate how upset they will be, but there is no precedent for them responding to divorce. If your child’s behavior takes a turn for the worse, that will add yet another concern to an already stressful time in your life. Bad behavior for some children is throwing tantrums or behaving rudely. For others, it may be more serious misbehavior that gets them in trouble with school or the law. You need to address your child’s behavior before it becomes a larger problem that creates consequences for them:

1. Maintain Discipline: Do not let your child get away with bad behavior because you feel guilty about the divorce. Your divorce may be the reason they are acting out, but being lax with discipline will encourage their behavior. You should maintain the same rules for behavior and may need to punish your child if their actions warrant it.

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 Posted on January 07, 2020 in Divorce

It is not enough to wait until after your divorce is over to decide on your post-divorce goals. You should already know what your primary goals are before you start the divorce process so that you can negotiate your divorce with those goals in mind. Once the court has approved your divorce agreement, it will be difficult to modify it if you realize that you missed an opportunity for your agreement to help you achieve a goal. A skilled divorce attorney and a divorce coach can help you identify your divorce goals and plan for how you will achieve them.

Actionable Goals

Most people have a vague idea about what they want from their divorce, but you will be most successful during your divorce if you have specific and quantifiable goals. Saying that you want a “fair share” or a “reasonable agreement” does not tell you how to recognize whether you are achieving your goals. It is more helpful to say that you want:

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 Posted on December 31, 2019 in Divorce Over 50

Going through a divorce is fundamentally the same process for everyone, regardless of their age. You need to divide the life you shared, including the assets you accumulated and the responsibilities you hold. Getting divorced when you are age 50 or older means you will approach some of these issues differently than if you were a younger couple. Your children are likely either adults or getting close to adulthood, which makes child-related issues less of a focus. However, there are other issues that can be more complicated during a gray divorce:

1. Health Insurance: Having good health insurance coverage becomes more vital as you get older and your healthcare expenditures likely increase. Divorce may disrupt your insurance if you are on your spouse’s plan. You need to find your own health insurance source until you are old enough to start receiving Medicare. If you are not eligible for Medicare based on your own work history, you can receive Medicare under your former spouse’s plan as long as you were married for at least 10 years and you have not remarried.

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