Posted on September 18, 2018 in Child Support

You can order your former spouse’s employer to withhold money from his or her pay if that former spouse is not making his or her required payments for child support or spousal maintenance. You must send your uniform order of support and a notice to withhold to your spouse’s employer. Once it receives the notice, the employer must:

• Withhold money from your former spouse's paychecks, starting with the first pay period in the next 14 days; and
• Send payments to a state disbursement unit within seven business days of the date that the former spouse is paid.

If the employer does not comply with the notice, you can file a third-party complaint against the employer for receipt of the missed payments and a $100 fine for each day that the employer did not comply.

Recent Example

In the case of In re Marriage of Schmidgall, a woman filed a complaint against her former husband’s employer for ignoring her notice to withhold for six months. The woman’s lawyer initially sent the notice to withhold by certified mail in May 2014, but the envelope was returned and marked “refused.” The lawyer sent two more notices in June and August, both of which were returned as “unclaimed.” The employer claims that it did not receive a notice until late December, after which it began to comply. Testimony in the case established that:

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on September 15, 2018 in Property Division

You have a sentimental and monetary decision to make in regards to what you should do with your engagement and wedding rings after your divorce. There are three options:

• Sell the rings;
• Keep the rings; or
• Give the rings back to your former spouse if he or she gave them to you.

Studies have found that Americans spend more than $6,000 on average for an engagement ring, and that average may be more than $8,000 in Illinois. Thus, the fate of your rings is highly valuable to you and your former spouse.

Selling the Rings

Illinois courts consider engagement and wedding rings to be gifts between spouses, which means they are separate from marital property. As the owner of the rings, you have the right to sell them and keep all of the proceeds. A premarital agreement could create an exception if the agreement states that you must either return the ring to the original purchaser or share its value as marital property. The value of your rings can still affect your division of property, even if they are not part of the marital property. The court has the discretion to compensate a spouse in the division of property if the other spouse has significant nonmarital properties.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on September 11, 2018 in Prenuptial & Postnuptial Agreements

For all of the work that goes into creating a premarital agreement, you want to feel assured that your effort was worthwhile. Premarital agreements settle the same division of property issues as a divorce, which requires accounting for your individual properties and debts. You may feel uncomfortable discussing the possibility of divorce before you have married. Not every marriage needs a premarital agreement. However, you should weigh the potential benefits of an agreement before dismissing the idea because it is at least worth a discussion.

Financial Protection

A premarital agreement is most useful when the parties own several properties from before their marriage. In the agreement, you can:

• Differentiate between marital and nonmarital properties; and
• Determine which marital properties you will receive in case of a divorce.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on September 07, 2018 in Divorce

Your appearance can portray your attitude towards your divorce as much as anything you say or do. Divorce is a formal process in which you are making important decisions that will affect your life and the lives of your children. Dressing appropriately tells others that:

• You take your divorce seriously;
• You will behave professionally during the process; and
• You are organized and responsible.

A divorce court judge is the most important person to make a good impression with by your appearance. The judge will form opinions about your character based on how you dress and groom yourself, which may affect his or her decisions on issues such as the allocation of parental responsibilities.

Attire

The clothing you wear should be formal and tasteful. Business casual is appropriate when you are meeting with your spouse outside of court. At court, you should dress more formally to fit the serious and professional atmosphere. Think of what you would wear to a job interview or important meeting. Men should wear a suit or jacket with a tie. Women can wear a simple dress, tasteful shirt and pants, or a business suit. There are several types of clothing you should avoid wearing, including:

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on September 04, 2018 in Divorce

Many long-term marriages share traits that create a strong relationship, such as respect, dedication, admiration, and patience. You cannot know whether these attributes will develop and sustain themselves in your marriage, but your interactions before your marriage can foreshadow how you will get along in your marriage. You can more easily predict when a marriage is destined for divorce than when it will succeed. Some couples enter ill-advised marriages because they ignore warning signs of incompatibility or make hasty decisions.

Social Pressure

You may become more anxious to get married as you grow older because:

• You fear that your chances of attracting a spouse will diminish with age;
• You want to start a family while you are still biologically capable of doing so;
• Your family is asking about your relationships and whether you have thought about marriage; and

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on August 30, 2018 in Children and Divorce

Some parents who are in failing marriages stay together for the betterment of their children. The seemingly ideal time to divorce is when the youngest child graduates from high school because:

• The children are more mature;
• They often leave home to go to college; and
• The divorce agreement will not need to cover the allocation of parental responsibilities or child support.

You may feel noble by deciding to delay your divorce for a couple of years until your children have become adults. You are considering the needs of your children before your own. However, postponing a necessary divorce can emotionally damage your children in ways you did not intend:

1. Your Children Are Continually Exposed to Your Conflicts: Staying married for your children will not fix the problems in your relationship. You will not be able to hide the tension between each other from your children. You will either openly lash out at each other or create an awkward environment by not talking to each other. Your children are learning from you how to interact in relationships.

   Continue Reading ››

 Posted on August 27, 2018 in Alimony / Maintenance

Since the U.S. Congress eliminated the alimony tax deduction, divorce professionals have waited to see how state governments will respond. People paying spousal maintenance will not be allowed to deduct their payments from their federal income taxes if the divorce agreement is approved after Dec. 31, 2018. Recipients will also not claim their payments as taxable income. The new law shifts the financial burden towards the paying spouse, and divorce professionals expect courts to react by awarding less in spousal maintenance. Illinois recently approved a new law that changes its directions to courts on how they should evaluate whether to award spousal maintenance and what the maintenance amount should be.

Deciding on Maintenance

The maintenance section of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act contains a list of relevant factors that a court must consider when determining whether awarding spousal maintenance is appropriate. The list instructed the court to consider “the tax implications of the property division upon the respective economic circumstances of the parties.” Lawmakers amended the section to simply state that the court should consider “the tax consequences to each party.” The amendment broadens the definition of what courts may consider in relation to taxes, which includes how not having the alimony tax deduction will affect the paying party.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on August 22, 2018 in Child Support

Child support is a shared responsibility between co-parents who no longer live together. Illinois’ child support laws use the number of children and the income of the parents to determine an appropriate amount to go towards raising the children. When one parent is not paying his or her share of child support, it hurts both the children and the other parent. If you have a co-parent who is not paying the required amount of child support, you may need to take legal action to enforce the child support payments.

Considerations Before Going to Court

When your co-parent misses a child support payment for the first time, your initial response should be to contact him or her and ask about the payment. Going to court may be unnecessary if your co-parent has a legitimate excuse for missing the payment and can assure you that this is a one-time occurrence. In some cases, the threat of legal action may be enough to get your co-parent to cooperate. However, you may need a court to be involved if your co-parent:

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on August 17, 2018 in Divorce

Outside of March, August is the most common month for people to get divorced. A 2016 study compiled the number of divorce filings per month from 2001 to 2015. Divorce filings reached their highest point of the year in March, immediately dropped for the next few months and suddenly spiked again in August before declining for the rest of the year. The study does not explain why divorces suddenly rose up again in August because the data does not include the reasons for divorces. However, social scientists have speculated several possible causes.

1. The End of the Summer Break: The summer is an important time for families to do enjoyable activities together while their children are on break from school. Parents who are considering divorce may delay their decision to avoid ruining this time for their children. The parents may also be optimistic that family bonding activities may repair their relationship. Unfortunately, spending more time with someone you do not get along with can sometimes make a relationship worse. By the end of the children’s summer break, the parents no longer feel obligated to stay together.

   Continue Reading ››

 Posted on August 13, 2018 in Alimony / Maintenance

Though spousal maintenance is not a requirement in a divorce agreement, one party will likely pay it if the other spouse was financially dependent during the marriage. Spouses can either reach their own spousal maintenance agreement or allow the divorce court to set the terms of the maintenance payments. If you are the spouse who is likely to pay maintenance, it may be more advantageous for you to negotiate your own terms. However, it is important to understand your options and their consequences when creating the agreement. A poor choice can put you at a long-term financial disadvantage:

1. Short-Term Payments Can Be Costlier: A spousal maintenance obligation is often spread out into monthly payments made for several years. Alternatively, the obligated spouse can make a few high-level payments or one lump-sum payment. The one-time payment may seem attractive to you because it may be less money than the total you would pay with a long-term plan. There is also the satisfaction of severing your financial ties with your former spouse. However, large payments work only if you have the money or assets to spare. You also risk overpaying for maintenance if your former spouse remarries in the near future. If you have a long-term payment plan, the payments will end upon your spouse's remarriage.

   Continue Reading ››