Category Archives: Divorce
Do You Need To File For Divorce In Florida If A Court Somewhere Else Already Dissolved Your Marriage?
In general, the courts in Florida have jurisdiction to dissolve the marriages of people who have resided in Florida for at least six months, even if they got married elsewhere. In some cases, the couple’s marriage was already rocky when they arrived in Florida, and because of the issue of jurisdiction, they had to… Read More »
How To Make A Clean Break After A Divorce, Even If You Have Minor Children
Trying to engineer a truly easy divorce is just a thought experiment, since it is never easy to break up a family, a partnership, or a circle of friends. Some divorces are financially less complex than others. If the parties do not have children or own real estate, and if neither of them has… Read More »
Yes, The Court Can Order You To Pay Alimony Even If Your Ex-Spouse Cheated On You
In the context of equitable distribution, equitable means fair, but it doesn’t mean equal. Many couples going through divorce disagree about the fairest way to divide their marital assets. In the age of no-fault divorce, courts usually do not try to assign blame to one spouse and then divide the marital property in a… Read More »
Do You Still Have To Pay Alimony If Your Ex-Spouse Has A Multimillion Dollar Trust?
It is the nature of equitable distributions that the percentages of marital assets that go to each former spouse vary from one couple to another. In determining equitable distribution and alimony, one factor that the court considers is the value of each spouse’s nonmarital assets. Property that one spouse owned before the marriage and… Read More »
When Your Ex-Spouse Torpedoes the Family Business During Your Divorce
Dividing marital property in a divorce tends to make all parties involved poorer, if it changes their financial situation in any substantial way. Anyone complaining on the Internet that his ex-wife is getting a free ride at his expense would probably change his tune if you actually got to look at his ex-wife’s bank… Read More »
The First Quarter of the Year Is Divorce Season
This year, Divorce Monday has come and gone, but divorce season is still in full swing. You may have heard the statistic that more people file for divorce and set up initial consultations with divorce lawyers on the first business Monday of the year than any other day. This year, Divorce Monday was January… Read More »
Equitable Distribution When the Couple’s Main Source of Income Was One Spouse’s Medical Malpractice Settlement
Florida is an equitable distribution state, which means that the court divides the couple’s marital property in a way that is fair to both parties, even though it does not always entail an equal division; it depends on each party’s earning potential and expenses and the value of each party’s separate property, because only… Read More »
Equitable Distribution When One Spouse’s Job is Cushier Than the Others
Marriage counselors will tell you that having a professional life and recreational interests separate from your spouse and their job and hobbies, but for the most part, the parties in lasting marriages see themselves as a team. You and your spouse might have separate bank accounts in addition to your joint account, and you… Read More »
You Can’t Avoid a Divorce by Pretending You Didn’t Receive the Divorce Papers
Sometimes people do desperate things when they find out that their spouse plans to divorce them. Your previously mild-mannered spouse might turn into a monster you do not recognize, calling you terrible names, sabotaging marital property, and threatening to fight you over every penny and make the judge think that you are a terrible… Read More »
Equitable Distribution of Marital Assets After a Short-Term Marriage
The cases where courts consider alimony are those where the parties were married for a long time and their earning potential is very unequal. Permanent alimony is only an option when the marriage lasts at least 17 years, except in extraordinary cases. For shorter marriages than that, the duration of alimony cannot exceed the… Read More »
