Posted on June 22, 2017 in Property Division

Divorcing spouses are required to divide their marital property as part of the settlement. It is important to accurately value all of your assets to ensure that you are getting an equitable share. There are tangible and intangible ways you can assign worth to assets, and understanding them is key to successfully negotiating your division of property. If the court is forced to decide on the division of property, it may not know the personal importance you place on assets that seem less valuable. When assessing the value of your marital property, there are four questions that you should answer.

Which Properties Are Shared?

Before assigning values to your properties, you need to identify your marital properties that will be subject to division. Courts typically consider marital properties to be those that:

• Are purchased or received during the marriage; or

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 Posted on June 20, 2017 in Divorce

Completing your divorce and moving on to the next stage of your life can cause a mix of emotions – some of them good. You may feel relief from marriage being over and excitement about your future. However, divorcees can be caught off guard by unexpected negative emotions. You feel refreshed and optimistic one day and depressed and doubtful the next. You may think, “Divorce is what I wanted, so why do I feel sad?” Even when a divorce frees you from an unhappy marriage, it is natural to mourn the end of your marriage and fear the changes in your life. Understanding these emotions is one of the final steps in healing from your divorce.

Common Emotions

How you react after a divorce may be similar to the commonly known five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Rather than the death of a person, you are experiencing the death of your marriage, which was the most important relationship in your life to this point. However, your post-divorce grief does not always follow an ordered flow chart. People’s divorces differ, so their emotions differ, as well. Common negative feelings after a divorce include:

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 Posted on June 15, 2017 in Divorce

After an Illinois court issues its final judgement on a divorce settlement, either party has the right to appeal the decision. However, many attorneys will caution you against appealing your divorce. You may want to appeal your divorce settlement in order to get a more favorable deal, but an appellate court will reject your appeal if that is the only reason. The purpose of a divorce appeal is to prove the trial court erred in its interpretation or application of the law. Divorce appeals are costly and successful only in rare cases.

Process

In Illinois, a person has 30 days to file an appeal after the court rules on the divorce settlement. The appellant must write a detailed brief, explaining why the lower court’s judgement should be overturned. In some cases, the appellate court may allow oral arguments. Once all the evidence has been presented, the appellate court will decide whether to uphold the original ruling, overturn it or send the case back to the lower court.

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 Posted on June 13, 2017 in Divorce

The death of a child is a nightmare scenario for parents. The grief and shock can be more intense than what results from the death of anyone else. Because the emotional damage is so great, some people believe that a majority of parents get divorced after their child’s death. Logic says that losing the child breaks a bond between spouses that can never be repaired. However, researchers have not found statistical evidence of an increased divorce rate among parents whose children have died. Psychologists believe that the way parents grieve can create conflict in a marriage, but it does not necessarily cause divorce.

Expressing Grief

Both parents will experience grief after the death of their child, but each may have a different way of showing it. The types of grief are usually divided by gender:

• Mothers are more likely to outwardly express grief through crying and emotional outbursts; and

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 Posted on June 08, 2017 in Child Custody

June 18 marks the annual celebration of Father’s Day in the U.S. While it is usually a time for fathers and their children to bond, a newly divorced father may experience the holiday differently. Depending on the parenting time arrangement, his children may be unavailable to visit him that day. If he does get to spend the day with them, he may not know how to celebrate. Past Father’s Day traditions may have relied on the mother’s involvement. Divorced fathers need to take an active role in creating a positive Father’s Day experience for them and their children.

Save the Date

You should talk to your former wife about your desire to spend Father’s Day with your children, especially if it would require altering your parenting time schedule. Parenting time agreements are legally binding, but parents can make minor adjustments without needing court approval. Hopefully, your former wife will appreciate the day’s importance to you and your children. However, you can also help with scheduling by being flexible:

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 Posted on June 06, 2017 in Children and Divorce

When women divorce, they often revert to their maiden name if they took their husband’s surname during the marriage. The process in Illinois is relatively straight-forward. A woman can:

• Add a provision in her divorce settlement that allows her to take back her maiden name;
• Use the settlement documents to obtain a new social security card and driver’s license; and
• Present her new identification cards when updating other documents and accounts in her name.

If a woman has primary allocation of parental responsibilities, she may also want to change her children’s last names to her maiden name. However, the mother must receive court approval, and a request to legally change a child’s last name may face heavy scrutiny.

Process

An application to change a child’s name must be filed separately from the divorce negotiations. After the mother has submitted the paperwork, the court will schedule a hearing on the matter. The father must be notified and given a chance to respond. If the father cannot be found, a notice of the hearing must be published for three weeks in a newspaper of record distributed in the area of his last known residence. At the hearing, the mother must present evidence as to why the name change is in the best interest of her child. If the change is granted, the mother must file for a new birth certificate and social security card for the child.

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 Posted on June 01, 2017 in Divorce and Finances

Getting a divorce can lift the emotional burden of being in a stressful marriage. However, single life has its own stresses, not the least of which is the financial adjustment. Your household income may be decreased, or you may be responsible for monthly support payments to your former spouse. Expenses you once shared with your spouse are now your individual responsibility. It can be a harsh adjustment if your former spouse was in charge of keeping track of your finances. You can take steps during and after your divorce to help yourself deal with your new financial independence.

Divorce Settlement

When negotiating the terms of your divorce, support payments and the division of property can give you some financial security. Child and spousal support, in particular, can benefit you for years:

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 Posted on May 25, 2017 in Prenuptial & Postnuptial Agreements

A recent American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers survey claims that a growing number of millennials are creating prenuptial agreements before getting married. According to the survey, 51 percent of attorneys are seeing an increase in premarital agreements by millennials, who are generally defined as people born in the 1980s and 1990s. There are numerous ways that a prenuptial agreement can benefit couples during a potential divorce, including:

• Defining individual and marital property;
• Determining the division of assets;
• Calculating alimony payments; and
• Allocating future benefits, such as retirement plans and life insurance.

Prenuptial agreements have grown more popular for couples of all ages in recent years, but researchers are particularly interested by the increase among younger couples. There are several possible reasons why millennials are embracing prenuptial agreements.

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 Posted on May 23, 2017 in Divorce

Conventional wisdom says that couples divorce because they are unhappy in their marriages. However, many couples will stay married, even though they are obviously miserable together. Parents may consider staying together a selfless action for the benefit of their children, but getting a divorce does not mean the parents are selfish. This reasoning also does not explain why a childless couple would remain in a bad marriage. Psychologists have theories on why unhappy couples stay together that are connected to the expectations of marriage.

Interdependence

Many people get married with hopes of love and emotional fulfillment, but marriage is also an institution of mutual benefit. Psychologists who follow the theory of interdependence believe that:

• Couples view marriage as a cost-benefit relationship;
• Each spouse weighs what the other spouse can provide against negative aspects of the marriage;

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 Posted on May 18, 2017 in Child Custody

When a court rules on parenting time as part of the allocation of parental responsibilities, it is a legally enforceable court order. A parent who violates the agreement may face criminal and civil consequences, including:

• Fines;
• Scheduling make-up parenting time for the other parent;
• Payment of a cash bond to insure against future violations;
• Probation;
• Driver's license suspension; and
• Up to a year in prison after a third offense.

Abuse of parenting time unlawfully reduces the amount of time one parent gets to spend with his or her children. There are multiple methods that parents can use to violate a parenting time agreement.

Withholding Children

The most straightforward way a parent can abuse parenting time is by preventing the other parent from seeing the children. Both parents must consent to any change in the regular parenting time schedule. A parent may have violated the agreement if he or she intentionally made the children unavailable during the other parent’s scheduled parenting time. However, the offending parent may successfully contest the violation if he or she can prove that the other parent is a threat to the children.

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