Posted on February 11,2016 in Divorce Finances

Financial debt is a major cause for concern around the United States, at the individual and family levels, as well as on collective scale. Families fractured by divorce or other type of similar stresses may be particular susceptible to growing debt, as financial obligations may be harder to meet on a single income, combined with a countless other contributing factors. However, a recently-published study suggests that parents with certain types of debt may place their children at increased risk for behavioral problems in the future.

Quality of Life Connections

The study was conducted by researchers at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and looked at data from more than 9,000 children and their mothers over a period of nearly 40 years. The research also categorized debt into four distinct types: home, education, automobile, and unsecured debt, which included credit cards, certain loans, and medical debt. Looking for possible connections, the team also examined the socio-emotional health and behavioral concerns of the participating children.

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 Posted on February 09,2016 in Mediation

If you were asked to picture a divorce proceeding, would you think about a courtroom with a husband on one side, a wife on the other, and a judge in the middle to officiate the battle? While the image in your head may not be quite so stereotypical, it is likely that your concept—like that of most people—is something similar. What you may not realize, though, is that the vast majority of civil cases, including divorce, are not decided in the courtroom; instead, they are negotiated in other ways and a judge is only required to approve the settlement and enter it as part the judgment. Mediation is among the most common methods used to reach an agreement in a divorce, and the process offers a number of advantages, including time and cost savings, flexibility, and increased participation from both parties. There is one additional benefit, however, that is often overlooked: a dramatically increased sense of privacy and security.

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 Posted on February 04,2016 in Visitation

When you are forced to consider how you will share parenting responsibilities following a divorce or a separation, your initial feelings may be very confusing. It can be quite overwhelming to think about not being with your child all of the time, but you probably realize how important it is for your child to have a strong relationship with the other parent. Finding common ground during a difficult time can be very challenging, but a mutual commitment to finding a cooperative solution can go a long way in providing security and happiness for your child.

Visitation is Now Parenting Time

Recent changes to the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act have amended the language used to describe a co-parent’s time with his or her child. For many years, any parent who was not deemed unfit or danger to the child was presumed to have rights of reasonable “visitation.” While the intention of the law may have been reasonable, referring to a parent’s time with his or her child visitation could have the effect of making the parent feel like an outsider or an interloper in the child’s life.

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 Posted on February 02,2016 in Divorce

For the last three decades or so, a couple looking to end their marriage in Illinois have had the option to do so on the “no-fault” grounds of irreconcilable differences. This alternative to divorce on more “traditional” fault grounds has been long seen as a way of reducing contentious and complications in the divorce process. Of course, even no-fault divorces can have their challenges, but the simpler proceedings have led to the decline of divorce filings on grounds of fault. Now, recent law changes have officially put an end to at-fault divorce in the state, and updated other provisions to help facilitate more efficient dissolutions when appropriate.

Burden of Proof

Prior to 2016, when a spouse filed for divorce citing one of the many possible fault grounds—including adultery, mental or physical cruelty, abandonment, and habitual substance abuse—he or she would be required to provide evidence of the other spouse’s behavior. As you might expect, this could often be quite difficult, as spouses inclined to engage in such activities typically would go to great lengths to hide their actions. For example, despite have serious suspicions, actually proving an extramarital affair to the court could be nearly impossible.

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 Posted on January 28,2016 in Child Custody

The circumstances surrounding a family separating in divorce are bound to change over time. As a result, one or both parties to the divorce may later seek to change the orders that set custody and visitation. Both child custody and visitation can get modified in a child’s best interest when a party requesting modification can show that circumstances have changed significantly since the initial order was entered.

Former spouses may initially seek to try to come to a mutually agreeable agreement with regards to custody in order to avoid the courts. This may be a good approach, especially if the parents are on good terms.  Any agreements the parties finalize are entered with the court to solidify it as the new custody or visitation agreement.

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 Posted on January 26,2016 in Child Support

Divorce can change a person’s financial life in many ways. One way that often affects a person for a while after the divorce is finalized, is an order to pay child support or spousal support. An order for child support or spousal support can continue for years, even as a person’s finances change. When a court orders either form of support, it often considers a person’s income in determining the amount to be paid. What happens to these orders when a person’s income changes later on?

Modifying Spousal Support Orders

If a spouse who is ordered to pay maintenance retires, loses their job, or otherwise loses their source of income, they can petition a court to reevaluate the amount ordered in order to determine if it can be decreased. In filing a motion with the court, the petitioner has to show a substantial change in circumstances that would warrant the decrease.

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 Posted on January 21,2016 in Divorce Finances

In some cases, the division of the couple’s financial assets in a divorce can extend to accounts that a person may consider to be a personal benefit, such as a retirement account. Under Illinois law, a divorcing spouse may be entitled to part of their spouse’s retirement account in some cases. Just as there are rules and guidelines as to the division of marital property, there are rules and guidelines when it comes to the division of retirement accounts.

The Illinois law on the dissolution of marriages holds that pension benefits and other retirement plans that were acquired after a marriage and before a legal dissolution or declaration of invalidity of the marriage are marital property. As such, retirement benefits are divided under the same rules as other marital property between the parties, regardless of which party worked and had the retirement payments deducted from their pay. The determination of the value of a retirement account or pension benefits is done according to the Illinois Pension Code, which recognizes this qualification of pension benefits as marital property.

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 Posted on January 19,2016 in Child Support

When child support is ordered, the payments are based on the income of the parent who is ordered to pay it. Income is considered from different sources, and a percentage is calculated based on Illinois law and the number of children involved. However, this does not mean that the amount will always be affordable to the parent, and the law allows a parent who loses employment or other forms of income to appeal to a court to seek lower payments. If a parent fails to seek modification of the child support after losing income, they may end up getting behind and owing arrearages on the child support.

Arrearages owed on child support do not go away. A parent may be ordered to keep paying child support based on arrearages long after the children have reached their eighteenth birthdays. While this feels unfair, especially since the child is not likely to be receiving the support payments directly, it is important to remember that the arrearages payments are not new support payments; they are meant to cover child support that the parent was supposed to be making in the past and never did. When making payments on arrearages, it is important to make sure that the calculations are done to reflect this and new child support payments are not added.

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 Posted on January 14,2016 in Child Custody

Court ordered visitations after a court decides a custody issue is supposed to be made on the same basis as the custody issue; that is, visitation should be awarded if it is in the best interest of the child. However, even if the court finds that visitation is in the best interest of the child, it may also find that the visitation should be supervised.

Following changes to the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage law that took effect on January 1, 2016, Illinois courts will now refer to visitation as parenting time. Parents are usually encouraged to work out issues relating to their children before presenting an agreement to the court. In cases where the parties cannot agree, the court may make determinations regarding parenting time. In making this determination, both parents are presumed to be fit parents, and limitations on parenting time are not to be placed unless the court finds that granting parenting time will seriously endanger the child’s physical, mental, moral, or emotional health. The court may also consider how the parenting time would impact a child’s emotional development.

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 Posted on January 12,2016 in Prenuptial Agreement in Illinois

As unromantic as it may sound, a marriage can be compared to a contract, with two people coming together and agreeing to form a partnership under certain terms. In some cases, when couples are contemplating marriage and even after they are married, they may enter into additional agreements to ensure their financial interests are secure in the event of a divorce. There are many reasons why couples may choose to enter into these prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, and there are numerous other concerns that they have to keep in mind when executing them. One important aspect of both kinds of agreements is the legal need for all parties to be aware of the assets at stake.

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