Your Responsibilites | Mediation Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Your Responsibilites’

More on Custody

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

Of course, if you are unable to get out of bed in the morning to fix your children breakfast, or you have been diagnosed with a severe mental illness which affects your ability to parent your children, these situations can adversely affect your custody claim. As unflattering as your psychiatric diagnosis may be, however, it is likely that your spouse will attempt to make an issue of it in your case. If your therapist can testify about the progress you’ve made, the efforts you’ve put in to getting better, and your adherence to the therapist’s advice, the testimony will likely make the best of a less-than-optimal situation. Click here for an article on selecting the right evaluator. For a host of information in custody in general, click here.

Witnesses for hire: In no case or circumstance does it make sense to hire competing independent evaluators to produce a battle of the experts. All you do is double your headaches, economic costs, and often the experts present opposing testimony that leaves the court will little help in the end. Choose one neutral evaluator carefully. Check into the person’s background and make sure they have no biases towards men or women, or other vantage point. Then agree to abide by the evaluation, and stick to it, even if it is unfavorable for you. Any true expert will work with you to improve the recommendations for all parties, as the parties show their ability to work together or compromise.

Excerpted from Your Divorce Advisor: A Lawyer and a Psychologist Guide You Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce (Simon & Schuster/Fireside 2001). For more information: http://www.yourdivorceadvisor.com/

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Custody, Lifestyle Changes, Protecting Children, Your Responsibilites
Posted in Child Support Issues, Co-parenting, Custody, Pareting Plans, Sensivity to Children | Comments Off

Handling Money at the End of Your Marriage

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

There are five financial issues that can take down a marriage – reduced circumstances, financial mistakes, caring for parents, caring for kids, and uncertainty – according to Ron Leiber, “Your Money” columnist of the New York Times. These are truly issues that affect every marriage at some point, and I thought that they warranted a little more coverage.

Reduced Circumstances: Although some people may be disappointed over the reduction in lifestyle thanks to a layoff or change of interest rate, consider how dividing up a household doesn’t reduce costs. Getting divorced will now mean that, however you and your spouse are dividing assets and responsibilities, you’re supporting two households on the same income that used to support one. Even if you have a peaceful and inexpensive divorce, it definitely does not improve reduced resources.

It might be that problem is that you were unhappy and unfulfilled in the marriage, but you stayed because of the money. Sometimes it’s easier to Spackle over problems with money than to address them. You might be thinking “I want to leave this marriage” and then balked at the tumult of taking the kids out of private school, foregoing that trip to Hawaii each year, and downsizing your car. If reduced circumstances have already stripped those things away, maybe you’ve just cleared the path to divorce.

In that case, more financial security created the problem by being a motivator for staying in an unhappy marriage, and losing those ties helped reveal the real issues.

Your Mistakes: The mistake is really that you didn’t have the difficult conversations early. I can’t tell you the number of people who come in who have railed through their home equity line of credit because they didn’t have the heart to tell their spouse to stop shopping at Fred Segal. But the discussion doesn’t revolve around the details. It needs to be a dialogue that you are both engaged in. “I want to share with you the home equity line of credit statement (or charge cards, etc). I am concerned that we are over spending. What do you think we should do?” Have the conversation as a series of “I” statements (as opposed to “you should”) and a question to open up the discussion.

The other big fight we see is “We agreed you would go back to work after the kids went to school and then you never did.”

To turn the conversation around, the approach is similar to the discussion above: “I am concerned that you’re not looking for a job when we agreed you’d go back to work when the kids were in school full time. What’s holding you back?” If it’s that the spouse has changed his/her mind, then involve him or her in the budgeting process. The loss of a second income will have an impact on the family. How can each partner take responsibility for that?

Too many people just let it ride, and four years later end up in our office feeling like they’ve been let down by the spouse who didn’t go back to work or curb spending. They realized too late that the real problem was that both people weren’t involved in making an active decision.

Your Children: While they may have started out as a surprise, their turning 18 and applying to college is not. Have the conversations about college early and often. And not just with your spouse, with the semi-adult children, too. A drastic change in circumstances is something an 18 year old is able to understand. But “we blew our wad on your siblings and didn’t plan for you” is sure to land him on a therapist’s couch.

Read more tips on dealing with finances in your relationship here: http://estestherapy.com/relationshiptips/2008/04/30/financial-stressors-keeping-your-relationship-strong-in-a-recession/, and to find out more about sharing college costs with your ex, go here: http://www.kiplinger.com/columns/drt/archive/2004/dt040826.html.

Tags: Creating Fair Settlements, Mediated Divorce, Re-entering the Workforce, Working with Your Spouse, Your Responsibilites
Posted in Cost of Divorce, Divorce and Your House, Negotiation, Property Division | Comments Off

Avoid Holiday Hysteria

Friday, November 6th, 2009

It’s early November, and the stress of the holiday season may already be creeping in. Shopping for gifts and big meals, planning events, coordinating with family members and friends who are coming to visit…it’s an exciting, overwhelming time for everyone. But if you you’re separated, divorcing, or divorced, the next two months might feel like they’re completely out of control.

Fortunately, there are a few tools and strategies that you can start using now to preempt your own feelings of holiday hysteria and help create a peaceful season for your family.

In my upcoming book, Making Divorce Work, my co-author and I center several exercises around how to articulate your goals, which will help you stick to them. You should create goals for your entire divorce process and its outcome, and for moments when you’ll need some extra guidance to hold onto. Before things get crazy, take a few quiet minutes to write down what you want out of your holiday season. By taking the time now to articulate your big-picture goals for your divorce and its outcome, you will give yourself the power to stay focused on what you need, let go of what you don’t by defining how you’ll achieve your goals through manageable steps. When you feel like you’re going to lose it, you will be able to look to your goals for support in making decisions that will keep you on track towards.

For example:

“My family and children will enjoy the holidays and the fact that we’re getting divorced will not interfere with that”

“I will not fight with my relatives at the holiday table even if they try to start an argument”

“Years from now, I will be proud that I took the high road during conflicts and my behavior was a model to my children.”

Keep in mind that this isn’t a one-time exercise. Use goal-setting in situations where you feel you’re losing sight of what’s important by being overwhelmed by what’s urgent. Some of our mediation clients have kept their lists folded in their wallets or even on the fridge to help them keep focused on what they really want. As the holidays roll closer, take a deeper look at your goals and core strategies. Think about how you can use these points of focus to stay on course and avoid the drama that takes you away from achieving peace and satisfaction. In the coming weeks, I’ll be going over more specific strategies for resolving conflict and staying sane.

For more thoughts on how goal setting can help you navigate tough situations, see http://www.divorcerecovery101.com/just_divorced.html, http://www.divorcemag.com/articles/Collaborative_Law/prioritizing-goals-interests.html, and Your Divorce Advisor: A Lawyer and a Psychologist Guide You Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce (Simon & Schuster/Fireside 2001). For more information: http://www.yourdivorceadvisor.com/.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Conflict Management, Dealing with Anger, Your Responsibilites
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Creative Solutions with Your Mortgage

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Let’s say your home is worth $100,000.00 and there is an $80,000.00 mortgage on the home, leaving $20,000.00 in equity. You and your spouse have agreed to divide your assets 50/50 and you are going to keep the house, but you are unable to pay your spouse for his or her $10,000.00 interest in the home. You agree to execute a mortgage in favor of your spouse that you will pay in a lump sum in 10 years. This mortgage will be documented by your attorney, who will draft the proper papers, and record them on the land records.

If, however, the housing market falls and your house is suddenly worth $70,000.00 when it comes time to pay this $10,000.00 mortgage, you must pay your spouse the $10,000 from the divorce agreement even though the value of the house is less than it was at the time of your divorce. This is also true even though the amount that you owe on the mortgages ($80,000 on the first mortgage and $10,000 on your spouse’s mortgage) may even be more than what you can expect to get for the house in the event you sell it. This is a risk that you take by not paying your spouse or dividing the asset immediately. Generally, real estate markets go up, but that isn’t always the case.

A creative way of dividing the equity in the house is for spouses to record a notice of equitable interest against the land records, which gives the spouse relinquishing his or her ownership interest in the house a right to a certain percentage of the equity in the house when it is sold. So, if you agreed that the house would be sold in 10 years and that each spouse would receive 50% of the equity, if the house was worth $70,000.00 in 10 years and the mortgage owed was still $70,000.00 in the example above, then your spouse would not receive any money, and you would not have to pay your spouse more than your house is worth at the time that the equitable interest becomes due.

Yet, if in the future the house is worth $300,000.00, and the mortgage has been reduced to $70,000.00, then your spouse would be entitled to share in one half of the $230,000.00 profit, even though he or she hasn’t been cutting the lawn or making the mortgage payments.

Sometimes, in these circumstances, the spouse remaining in the house accrues a certain amount of credit for the fact that he or she has performed the maintenance and paid down the balance on the principal owed on the mortgage over time. You may also wish to make provisions with respect to repairs and maintenance on the house, having you and your spouse share expenses for big ticket items such as the furnace, water heater and roof. If both spouses are to share in the appreciation of the house (or depreciation), they could both share in the maintenance costs.

These kinds of situations can get sticky emotionally and are not as straightforward as simply refinancing or selling the house at the time of the divorce, but they may represent a creative solution that will help you settle your case. For more information on the financial aspects of divorce, see http://www.peace-talks.com/finformation.php. Also visit the Peace Talks resource center at http://www.peace-talks.com/resources.php.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Creating Fair Settlements, Your Responsibilites, Your Rights
Posted in Divorce and Your House | Comments Off

Timing of the Sale of Your House

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

Evaluate your circumstances to determine when and how the equity in the house is best split, and whether that must be accomplished by a sale, or a refinance or buy-out between spouses. Sometimes it can be done immediately, and in other situations a delay is preferable.

If one spouse wishes to keep the house, and there is a way to divide the equity and offset it against other assets, or refinance the house so that the spouse giving up the house is paid his or her share of the house as soon as possible, then the spouse retaining the house would be under no obligation to sell the house subsequently. This is the cleanest way to handle this situation.

However, you may not be in the economic position to split your home equity in this manner, or may be ineligible or unable to afford a refinance. Therefore the timing of how a spouse is paid his or her share of the house equity becomes a central issue.

If the division of equity will not happen immediately, there may be an obvious dividing point, such as when the children graduate from high school or college, the remarriage of the spouse retaining the house, whenever that spouse begins to live with someone under circumstances tantamount to remarriage, or any other life event that you determine in advance. Generally, when the first of these events occurs, the spouse who gave up ownership of the house or right to occupy the house needs to be paid his or her equity, either through a refinance or a sale. Sometimes, the spouse to whom payment is owed is given an opportunity to buy the house if the spouse who retained the house wishes to sell it at that time. If you want help in considering all of your options, consider meeting with a divorce financial planner, see https://www.institutedfa.com/ReferralSearchPage.aspx. Also, be sure to see the Peace Talks resource center at http://www.peace-talks.com/resources.php.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Creating Fair S, Working with Your Spouse, Your Responsibilites, Your Rights
Posted in Divorce and Your House | 1 Comment »

Determining the Value of the House

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Determining the value of your house may help you make the decision about whether or not to sell. Determining its essential value is easy if the house is on the market for sale, and a willing buyer offers a price that both you and your spouse feel is fair. The ultimate value of your house is what someone is willing to pay you to buy it. At the closing, the mortgage and any liens are paid off, you pay the realtor’s fees, and the leftover money is the net equity. That’s the amount you and your spouse divide.

If you are not going to sell your house, or you are uncertain, you can have it professionally appraised. Since the 1980s real estate boom and crash, few people have a realistic idea of what their home is worth. Their sentimental attachments interfere with their ability to accurately assess its value.

Real estate agents may offer to appraise your home for free, but beware. These same agents may realize that you are divorcing, and may want the listing on the house in the event that it’s sold. In order to entice you to do that, they may artificially inflate the value of the home, in an effort to woo you into listing the property with them.

How to select an appraiser with your spouse

If possible, select an appraiser with your spouse. Ask for a referral from a trusted real estate agent, friend who has recently sold or purchased a house, or your lawyer. If you each know an appraiser but cannot agree on which appraiser to use, you may ask your appraisers to make a recommendation. If you can agree on an appraiser, you can split the cost, which poses an obvious advantage. By choosing one appraiser, rather than each hiring your own, you avoid “dueling appraisers” who testify against each other at a trial, a time-consuming and expensive approach.

If you cannot agree on one appraiser, and each hire your own, choosing a respected appraiser who assigns a fair value to your home is generally the best strategy. If your case proceeds to trial, you’ll need an appraiser who is respected in the professional community and who has experience testifying in court. An unscrupulous appraiser who assigns a disproportionately high or low appraisal value to your home to please you may not be able to justify that value in court. Judges do not take kindly to parties who try to unduly bias the Court in their favor. Such shading of the truth then undermines your case.

Once you have a fair appraisal, you can then work with the value of your home in further dividing your assets. For some terrific resources about selling when getting a divorce, see http://homebuying.about.com/od/sellingahouse/qt/0307DivorceHome.htm. Also see the Peace Talks divorce resource center at http://www.peace-talks.com/resources.php.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Creating Fair Settlements, Dealing with Your Spouse, Your Responsibilites, Your Rights
Posted in Divorce and Your House | Comments Off

Sell or Keep the House?

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

One of your first big decisions in your divorce is whether or not you can afford your house or apartment after the other spouse moves out, and if so, whether you want to continue to live there. The last thing that you and your spouse need is an unmanageable property that neither of you can afford. By the same token, don’t make any rash decisions. You can always give up an apartment or sell a house later, but you probably won’t be able to re-rent the same apartment or re-buy the house after you give it up.

Even if you can afford the house and want to live there, can you mow the yard and do the necessary repairs without your spouse to help? Is there too much space? Are there too many memories? Are you able to afford it, but it will take so much of your monthly income that you won’t be able to do anything besides pay the mortgage or rent and buy groceries? Is that a lifestyle you can accept? For an excellent article on whether to see your house, see http://parenting.ivillage.com/mom/structure/0,,t7f,00.html.

When Edith got divorced, she wanted the house. She and Charles had renovated it themselves over the last 10 years, and she’d personally picked out all of the details, from the paint color to the door knobs. When Charles said he was leaving, she felt the house was her only solace. It was a comfort to her, but only for a time. Within two years she realized she was rushing home from her job every day to mow the yard, wait for the washing machine repairman, and to clean. She barely had enough money left every month to go to the movies, and most of her “savings” were tied up in equity in the house. Two years ago, the house had been a comfort. Now it was a liability! She sold the house and moved to a condominium, and now has free time and money to enjoy herself.

If either you or your spouse can afford to stay in the home, and there is a sentimental reason or attachment to the home, or you want your children to stay there, you will need to begin thinking about who will be staying in the home. Once the decision about who is staying in the home is made, then the question becomes how to divide the equity in the home. For a good practical article, see http://www.divorce360.com/divorce-articles/debt-and-credit/mortgage/need-to-sell-your-house-in-divorce.aspx?artid=899.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Creating Fair Settlements, Dealing with Your Spouse, Your Responsibilites, Your Rights
Posted in Divorce and Your House | Comments Off

How do We Use Our Assets for Mutual Benefit?

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

In a divorce situation, many people feel that their spouse will receive monies in the settlement which will be used inappropriately by that spouse. A common refrain is “he’ll just use the money on his new girlfriend, and forget all about our children” or “she is terrible with money and will waste it.” Sometimes sentiments reflect a concern that parents who once used money for a common goal may lose sight of that goal, such as saving money for a child’s college expenses. Avoid some common costly mistakes of divorce outlined in an article in MSN Money, http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/CollegeAndFamily/SuddenlySingle/Divorcing15CostlyMistakes.aspxA constructive way to control your money in a divorce is to use that money to advance a common goal.

You may be thinking that you and your spouse no longer have common goals, but you’d be surprised at what you may be able to agree upon. One use for savings that you’re afraid your spouse will spend frivolously after the divorce is to pay off joint credit card debt. The spouse with the highest income takes the largest chance that he or she will get stuck with the lion’s share of the credit card bills, so this is a good strategy for that person to advance. Presumably, a judge will divide savings which accumulated during the marriage equally (at least somewhat equally) between the two of you. Negotiate for those savings to go toward a credit card bill for which you owe money (or upon which your signature appears as an obligor), and you’ve reduced your after-divorce expenses (no more credit card payments). You’ve also restricted the amount of money your spouse has to spend on items you don’t believe are important. Your spouse may even agree to pay off the credit card debt. This benefits both spouses unless the credit card you’re paying off includes presents and vacation expenditures for your current single life or love interest, or was clearly only used for your benefit as opposed to your family’s benefit.

Another use for creating a mutual goal is to set up trust accounts for your children’s college expenses, or a first car. Each party can be required to contribute a certain amount of assets or income into a fund which will be jointly administered. Neither party can take money out of the account without the agreement of the other. Expenses to be paid from the account are agreed upon in advance, such as “tuition, room, board and books”, or “an automobile at age 18 costing not more than $10,000″ or “travel expenses for a trip abroad after high school graduation, not to exceed $3500″. For a good article on handling child rearing expenses after divorce, see http://www.womansdivorce.com/child-rearing-expenses.html.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Divorce Financial Planning, Your Responsibilites, Your Rights
Posted in Dividing Assets | Comments Off

Personal Property in all Jurisdictions

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

The courts are reluctant to get involved in dividing up personal property, so if you and your spouse can do it yourselves, that is the best way to proceed. By the time you’ve argued in court about a two year old TV set and a sofa with a spot on it, you will have spent enough in lawyers’ fees to purchase both items new. Sit down with the list of your personal property and sort out the obvious items that one spouse or the other will want. The antique that came from your mother’s family home should go back to you, and his favorite recliner should go to him. Narrow your list to those items which are actually in dispute.

Once you have determined which items are in dispute, make a list of them. From here, there are several ways to proceed. One frequently used method is to flip a coin, and the winner gets to pick the first item, the loser gets to pick the second item, the winner gets to pick the third item, and so forth.

Another possibility is to assign a dollar value to the property and have an “auction”. The spouse who wants certain pieces of property the most will be willing to pay the other spouse more for them than the spouse to whom the property is less important.

The Court will be reluctant to award one spouse money in exchange for giving the other spouse most of the personal property. Despite your sentimental attachment to your furniture and personal items, unless they are antiques, oriental rugs, or paintings by famous artists, most of your items have more value to you personally than they would to someone else. A judge will be unlikely to place values on the items, and award one spouse or the other the commensurate cash value for the items.

The message is to negotiate with your spouse for any personal property that you want, and don’t expect to be paid for what you give up. Take what you feel you deserve, but don’t expect any cash in lieu of property given up unless you both agree. For a good article on dividing property without a fight, see http://www.divorcehelp.com/rr/rr09.html.

If you cannot agree upon a fair way to divide up the items in dispute, at least you have narrowed the list, hopefully to a manageable length, for your lawyer to deal with in negotiations, or for the judge to divide at the time of the trial. For more tips on divvying up everything from family silver to DVDs, see http://www.firstwivesworld.com/resources/resource-articles/divvying-everything-family-silver-dvds-during-divorce.

Emotions run high for certain possessions, and spouses sometimes use these hot buttons as an opportunity to retaliate against the other person. A good benchmark is “will this matter in 5 years?” If it will not matter, then be prepared to give it up now.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Creating Fair Settlements, Divorce Basics, Your Responsibilites, Your Rights
Posted in Property Division | Comments Off

Yours Alone or Community Property

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

If a business increased in value because the businessperson devoted time, skill, and expertise, then the business will be considered community property. Examples include an interior decorating business, software development, and other labor-intensive businesses.

Professional licenses are not subject to division, but can warrant alimony orders to even-out the earning power of the spouses.

To the extent that you intend to prove that an asset is your separate property, or that although an asset was purchased while you were married it was purchased with separate property, be prepared to present documentation which traces the source of the funds used to acquire the asset. If you have kept your property separate, you have a good chance of it remaining separate property for purposes of a community property state divorce. If you’ve intermingled separate property with community property, the court may find that you intended to give a gift of that separate property to your spouse, or that, at best, you’re entitled to reimbursement (without interest) for your separate property’s contribution to community property.

For instance, if you owned a rental property prior to your marriage and kept the rental income separate from any marital funds, in a bank account in your sole name, and used only the rental income to improve the rental property, then the rental income will be considered to have remained separate property, even though it accumulated during your marriage.

While the details of property division can become a bit confusing, keep sight of the initial premise: if it accumulated during your marriage, it’s probably community property. If you intend to claim otherwise, be prepared to prove it.

If property accumulated during your marriage, it’s probably community property and will be divided 50/50. If you intend to claim otherwise, be prepared to prove it. If you have questions, you may choose to meet with a divorce financial planner. See https://www.institutedfa.com/ReferralSearchPage.aspx. For resource on the financial aspects of divorce, see http://www.peace-talks.com/finformation.php.

For more information contact Peace Talks www.peace-talks.com

Tags: Creating Fair Settlements, Your Responsibilites, Your Rights
Posted in Property Division | Comments Off

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Posts Tagged ‘Your Responsibilites’

More on Custody

Handling Money at the End of Your Marriage

Avoid Holiday Hysteria

Creative Solutions with Your Mortgage

Timing of the Sale of Your House

Determining the Value of the House

Sell or Keep the House?

How do We Use Our Assets for Mutual Benefit?

Personal Property in all Jurisdictions

Yours Alone or Community Property