Category: Divorce

A New Order Impacts Every Dade County Divorce

Posted by admin on

On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Thursday, October 23, 2014.

A Florida Congressman’s messy divorce is a lot messier. His wife claims he’s not paying for home repairs and cut off her credit cards. Will the new Miami Administrative Order make vengeful tactics a thing of the past?

Dirty tricks, such as cutting off health insurance, chopping up credit cards, and turning off vital utilities, are common events in a divorce.

The Florida Congressman’s wife has been a stay-at-home mother, and has no financial resources to maintain the home. The Congressman’s attorney says:

“If she is a poor housekeeper, that’s her issue, not his.”

In August 2014, the Chief Judge of the 11th Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County entered an administrative order impacting every divorce in Miami.

The order imposes new rules which may impact every single new divorce in Miami include the following:

  • Neither party can permanently remove children from their current county of residence.
  • If you have children, the parent with whom the children are not residing should make voluntary payments of child support before entry of an order requiring child support.
  • Parents are ordered to abide by the shared parental responsibility statute.
  • Everyone is required to attend mediation before a final hearing.
  • Everyone is now ordered to refrain from physical, verbal, or any other form of harassment, including by telephone, email, or text messaging at their house or at work.
  • No one in a divorce can conceal, damage, or dispose of any asset, except by written consent of the parties or an order of court.
  • Neither party can cancel telephone, electric, or water and sewer services.
  • Neither party can destroy family records, business records, or any records of income or debts.
  • No one in a divorce can incur any unreasonable debts binding the other spouse.

The new Administrative order is now in effect. It was designed to promote the stability of families going through a divorce, and reduce the number of “emergency” hearings.

The new administrative order is available here.

Lavish Weddings and Divorce

Posted by admin on

On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Monday, October 20, 2014.

When Chelsea Clinton married Marc Mezvinsky, it is believed their wedding cost $5 million. Jay Z is rumored to have spent $5 million on Beyonce’s engagement ring. Does spending more on your wedding reduce the risk of divorce?

Ironically, a new study shows that your marriage’s duration is actually inversely associated with how much you spend on the engagement ring and wedding ceremony. Two economics professors at Emory carried out a study on over 3,000 men and women.

The professors found that men who spent between $2,000 and $4,000 on engagement rings were 1.3 times more likely to get divorced than men who spent between $500 and $2,000 on a ring.

But there’s more to the study too. In sum, the professors found that:

There is little evidence that expensive weddings and the duration of marriages are positively related.

High spending on the engagement ring is inversely related with the length of a marriage among males.

High spending on a wedding is inversely related with marriage length among females

Low spending on a wedding is positively associated with duration among both males and females.

High wedding attendance and having a honeymoon (regardless of how much it cost) are generally positively associated with marriage duration.

The wedding industry has grown to a $50 billion industry. The average American wedding cost is $29,858.

“In 1959, Bride’s recommended that couples set aside two months to prepare for their wedding and published a checklist with 22 tasks for them to complete. By the 1990s, the magazine recommended 12 months for wedding preparation and published a checklist with 44 tasks to complete.”

The study suggests that the close relationship between divorce and your spending on a lavish wedding and engagement ring could be due to the stress on couples from the debt of their wedding day and ring purchase.

According to the study, if you are going to have a wedding, invite as many people as possible, and take a honeymoon. The study confirms that a big wedding attendance and any kind of honeymoon – regardless of cost – was positively associated with the length of a marriage.

The study can be read here.

Leaving or Staying in the Marital Home

Posted by admin on

On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Equitable Distribution on Sunday, March 9, 2014.

Should you move out of the house before the divorce is over? One couple was recently ordered to build a wall inside their house to separate them. Many clients wonder if moving out helps or hurts their case. Others wonder if they are losing rights.

Sometimes the arguing gets too intense, and the court must intervene. For one couple in Brooklyn, their arguing resulted in their being ordered to build a wall dividing their home so each could stay in the house peacefully.

This was not just a simple line on the floor as in the 1989 movie: War of the Roses, but an actual wall of plywood and sheetrock through the middle of their house (see picture above). Interestingly, the judge gave the wife the kitchen and the husband the dining room.

The marital home a valuable asset, maybe your most valuable asset, but it is also a place for you to live in . . . with your children – if you have them. Third it is an important, and possibly big part, of the final settlement.

Marital Asset

The home remains a marital asset, which is subject to equitable distribution, regardless of who lives there during the divorce process. If a home is marital then both parties have equal rights to buy – out the other’s share. Both may also be on the hook for liabilities.

Children’s Issues

Until a parenting plan in place, if you are interested in maintaining a meaningful relationship in your child’s life, leaving the home before a timesharing agreement is entered may show a lack of real interest in the child’s daily life. Moving out can create the appearance of a new ‘primary residential parent’ by default. Worse, if the process takes a long time, it creates a new status quo.

Cost

The person leaving may still have to contribute for the expenses of the home while also paying for a new home. It can be costly, and prohibitive expensive when you know that the process will take a long time.

Settlement

Staying in the same home could create an incentive to negotiate a final settlement because living with your soon to be ex-spouse is very uncomfortable. However, if someone moves out, the person remaining in the home is sitting pretty and may be less inclined to settle.

If you Leave

Before moving out, there should be some discussions about maintaining the home and who is paying for which expenses, an inventory should be made of the personal property, artwork, silverware etc., and the boundaries for when the ‘out-spouse’ can use and enjoy the home after vacation

More about the crazy Brooklyn divorce and the separation wall can be read at NBC’s website here.

Divorce at 48

Posted by admin on

On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Tuesday, September 2, 2014.

A writer at Huffington Post describes what a late-in-life divorce is like when her husband of 27 years sat her down on their new chaise lounge and told her he loved somebody else.

I’ve written on the phenomenon of gray divorces before. In 1990, 1 in 10 persons who divorced was 50 or older. By 2011, according to the American Community Survey, more than more than 1 in 4 were aged 50 or older.

Are women to blame? Women have long been more sensitive to – or less tolerant of – a mediocre relationship than men and are less willing to just ‘wait it out.

Men also share the blame, call it the Viagra Effect. With Viagra, men are able to satisfy younger women, and people are living longer and feel they can get out and still have a life.”

Several other factors include societal acceptance of divorce, increased economic autonomy of women and lengthening life expectancies.

What’s it like to divorce? The Huffington Post writer, Amy Koko, continues:

There were lawyers. . . There were accountants and mediators and a court-required class about parenting for this mother of four teenagers. . . And then finally, the dust settled and there were the two of us . . .

I went back to college and sat among young kids ready to graduate, in creative writing classes. They were amazingly talented kids, yet they were impressed with me! I had something to say and apparently did it in such a way that they wanted to read more. I was chosen to attend a writing seminar with well-known authors at Sarah Lawrence College. Me. A 48-year-old divorcée, living in a dorm room for a week, writing my little heart out.

There are special concerns involved when older couples divorce. As always, information is power, so make a point to seek out experts for guidance.

The Huffington Post article is here.

Do Daughters Cause Divorce?

Posted by admin on

On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Sunday, August 10, 2014.

Knowing your baby’s sex can tell you a lot of things: like what color to paint the baby’s room, what baby gifts to get and . . . whether your marriage will end up in divorce court?

Studies have reported that marriages in which the firstborn are daughters are more likely to divorce than those producing firstborn sons. Researchers have observed a correlation between couples with daughters and their likelihood of divorce, which tends to be higher than for couples with sons.

Explanations abound: When adult sons live at home, they add to their parents’ workload. But when adult daughters live at home, they decrease the daily workload. Wives with daughters are less likely to stay with their husbands because with a girl, they’ll never be lonely or without help; and are less willing to tolerate bad husbands.

New research is showing the association between divorce rates and daughters might have more to do with what happens before birth. Female embryos tend to be hardier than male embryos, so girls may be surviving stressful relationships that boys can’t survive.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), research has found that conflicts in relationships predict the sex of children born after the conflict and also predicts subsequent divorce.

Researchers are taking pains to point out that their study indicates the need for a change in how research is conducted. Typically, studies about divorce start after birth. This new research is showing that other factors come into play before a child is born.

It seems pretty basic that couples with children face big conflicts that have nothing to do with parenting. But this new research is showing these conflicts exist and cause tension in relationships before kids are even born.

You can read more about the study here.

Celebrity Divorces and New Gay Marriage Case

Posted by admin on

On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Wednesday, July 30, 2014.

A wealthy celebrity divorce is always juicy news. Michael Moore’s is no exception. Not surprisingly, his divorce reveals that the couple fought over (what else?) their enormous wealth.

As the Washington Post reports, for the neighbors of Traverse City who boat past Moore’s home, tongues wagging, the $2 million, 10,000 square-foot property has been a symbol of Moore’s “do as I say, not as I do” lifestyle.

Back in 2009, a morning show invited Moore on the broadcast to bash Wall Street executives. Moore ranted against business leaders living in “gated communities” and “castles with motes around them.”

This lavish display of wealth hasn’t been lost on the couple’s neighbors. “He is not a common man. No way,” one neighbor told The Detroit News.

Moore and Glynn own nine properties in Michigan and New York, including a Manhattan condo that once was three apartments. His wealth is pegged at around $50 million.

New Same-Sex Marriage from the 4th Circuit Court

A federal appellate court just invalidated Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban. The 4th Circuit is the second federal appellate court, after the 10th Circuit, to strike down an exclusion of gay couples from marriage.

The Fourth Circuit held that the ban violated gay couples’ fundamental right to marry and placed heavy reliance on both Windsor and Lawrence v. Texas as establishing the equal validity of gay couples’ intimate and relational choices:

Lawrence and Windsor indicate that the choices that individuals make in the context of same-sex relationships enjoy the same constitutional protection as the choices accompanying opposite-sex relationships. We therefore have no reason to suspect that the Supreme Court would accord the choice to marry someone of the same sex any less respect than the choice to marry an opposite-sex individual who is of different race, owes child support, or is imprisoned. Accordingly, we decline the Proponents’ invitation to characterize the right at issue in this case as the right to same-sex marriage rather than simply the right to marry.

The opinion used the word “segregation” in striking the law:

Civil marriage is one of the cornerstones of our way of life. It allows individuals to celebrate and publicly declare their intentions to form lifelong partnerships, which provide unparalleled intimacy, companionship, emotional support, and security. Denying same-sex couples this choice prohibits them from participating fully in our society, which is precisely the type of segregation that the Fourteenth Amendment cannot countenance.

The federal case of Bostic v. Schaefer can be read here.

New Study Shows the Reasons for Divorce

Posted by admin on

On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Sunday, July 20, 2014.

Since the 1970s, the percentage of Americans who divorce has hovered between 40% to 50%. Using new data, a recent survey shows who wants out and why.

I’ve written about the reasons for divorce before. This new study notes that women are most prone to discontent in marriage: 20% of married women report having thought about leaving their spouse within the past year.

However, thoughts about separating – or conversations with one’s spouse or partner about exactly that – do not signify that a relationship is over: 13% of married respondents report having talked about separating.

Women also are far more likely to want out of their marriages than men: 55% said they wanted their marriages to end more than their spouses while only 29% of men reported the same.

For over 125 years, wives are consistently more likely to file for divorce than husbands. These results are resistant to time, which is surprising since economic opportunities for women have expanded dramatically – giving women outside options – and divorce laws have been altered, typically in their favor

The most-cited reasons for wanting a divorce were:

Infidelity by either party: 37% (28% spouse’s infidelity)

Spouse unresponsive to your needs: 32%

Grew tired of making a poor match work: 30%

Spouse’s immaturity: 30%

Emotional Abuse: 29%

Financial Priorities/Spending Patterns: 24%

Alcohol and Drug Abuse: 23%

Physical violence was a common reason listed by women seeking a divorce.

When married couples are asked about physical abuse, nearly identical shares of men and women say that they have experienced some form of physical abuse at least once in their marriage.

Divorce Timing

Posted by admin on

On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Thursday, July 10, 2014.

Timing is everything they say. The right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing. If so, is there a right time to divorce? The Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch seems to think so.

Right thing to do at the wrong time.

Say you’re hedge-fund billionaire Dave Tepper, and just separated from your wife after 28 years. Your net worth is about $10 Billion. Timing is definitely a factor in your decision to divorce.

If the Tepper divorce goes ahead today, it would very likely be less expensive if it happened before the 2009 financial crisis. A lot of stock traders were panicking in 2009. But Tepper bought shares of troubled banks and took in nearly $4 billion for himself.

Divorce timing isn’t limited to stock market booms and busts either. Consider whether you would want to divorce if you know your company was about to go public. What if your spouse was about to receive a huge bonus, or a big inheritance? If any of those apply to you, waiting may be the right move at the right time, or the right move at the wrong time, or, well you get the point.

I wrote an article about dividing property in divorce when the value of the home is underwater – where the mortgage is worth more than the property. This may be the time to put off the divorce decision.

As the Wall Street Journal reports:

During the housing market meltdown, there were often no liquid assets to distribute. The share of underwater mortgages fell to below 20% in the first quarter of 2014 for the first time in four years and it’s expected to fall to 17.2% by the end of this year, according to real-estate website Zillow. That gradual rise in house prices will help unhappy couples to live happily ever after financially.

There are also practical and emotional issues to consider. Do you want to get divorced a week before your daughter’s wedding, or your son’s bar mitzvah or an in-law’s funeral? How about when your kids are taking their SATs, EOCs, or FCATs?

Having a plan is meaningless. Planning is everything. (Dwight D. Eisenhower said that) If so, once you’ve decided to divorce, carefully planning comes into play.

The Market Watch article is available here.

The One Day Divorce and Other Self Help Programs

Posted by admin on

On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Friday, June 20, 2014.

Everyone knows divorce can be a long process. San Diego has a new program to help you complete your divorce in 1 day. Is there a problem with court-created ‘do it yourself’ divorces?

A New York Times reporter discovered a big one:

A real estate broker in Manhattan, used a $50 online do-it-yourself divorce kit when she and her husband of more than nine years decided to part ways. She figured they could save money by avoiding lawyers.

But after the courthouse clerk rejected her filing because the document formatting was incorrect, she had the paperwork reviewed by a lawyer, who informed her that if she waited six more months to file, she would be entitled to a portion of her husband’s pension benefits.

“If I had to do it over, I would hire an attorney immediately,” she said.

Do it yourself divorces only seem to reduce the cost and time of a divorce. However, people overwhelmingly are unaware of what the law entitles them to, and they lose out on tens of thousands of dollars, and the process can end up taking longer than it would otherwise.

“It’s like going to WebMD and deciding to treat yourself,” said Michael Stutman, a family law specialist in New York.

In Florida, a large number of divorcing people go it alone. Typically, people file initial divorce paperwork themselves, but don’t know what to do next, so their file languishes for months. Budget cuts in our state courts have reduced personnel and made the problem worse.

San Diego’s introduction of a one-day divorce program for people who can’t afford or don’t want a lawyer was not intended to protect your rights, the program was designed to solve a court administrative problem by flushing your case as quickly as possible.

Also, the program doesn’t mean a divorce is truly started and completed in a single day – residency and notification requirements have to be met first. You must, for example, already have filed a divorce petition and served your spouse with divorce papers to participate.

Florida does not offer a One-Day Divorce yet, but in Miami-Dade County the court offers a Self Help Program to provide necessary forms for a fee. But the program is designed to reduce delays caused by insufficient filings.

You are strongly cautioned that if you have any assets or may be paying support for a while, that you avoid one-day programs and self-help clinics like the plague.

You can read more about San Diego’s pilot program by clicking this link to NBC San Diego

Father’s Rights on Father’s Day

Posted by admin on

On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Saturday, June 14, 2014.

Happy Father’s Day! There is a feeling among fathers that courts assume the mother is the only real parent. Men fear losing their kids in divorce court. Many think divorce courts are biased towards women. Are they right?

As Slate reports:

There’s a real perception – even women share it – that courts are unfair to fathers,” says Ira Ellman, a custody expert at Arizona State University. But in fact the great revolution in family court over the past 40 years or so has been the movement away from the presumption that mothers should be the main, or even sole, caretakers for their children.

Cases which involve fathers who never married the mothers are relatively new to the courts, but divorce courts have a long history of trying to keep up with changing gender dynamics.

The legal presumption that mothers should automatically get custody of children what in Florida we used to call the “tender years” doctrine has been abolished. Now Florida has a presumption of shared parental responsibility.

Are men’s rights activists right when they argue mother preference still exists? According to one of the most thorough surveys of child custody outcomes, which looked at Wisconsin between 1996 and 2007, the percentage of divorce cases in which the mother got sole custody dropped to 45.7% from 60.4%.

A recent survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers shows that an increasing number of moms will be setting aside time to sign child support and alimony checks. Overall, 56% of the nation’s top divorce attorneys say that they have seen an increase in the number of mothers paying child support during the past three years, while 47% also note a rise in women being responsible for alimony throughout the same time period.

The real inequality in family courts these days may not be gender bias, but income bias. Wealthy men can end up paying very little in child support if they fight for substantial or majority timesharing. For poor men though, who may lack the ability to care for their children most of the time and pay a larger percentage of their salary as child support, the law may seem stacked against them.

For more on the Slate story, click here.