Posted on December 00, 0000 in Child Support

Following a divorce, chances are high that either you or your spouse will re-marry. However, if you and your ex-spouse had children, and there is a child support order involved, is it possible for the custodial parent to obtain an increase in the original child support award based on the new spouse's income?

Calculation of Illinois Child Support Payment

The Court determines the value of a monthly child support an obligor (the parent ordered to pay child support) must pay based on a child support guidelines adopted by the Illinois legislature. Although there may be slight variations, a typical child support award is a percentage of an obligor’s net income, with the percentage being determined by the number of children he or she is financially obligated to support.

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 Posted on December 00, 0000 in Divorce

The decision to divorce, regardless of a couple's age or length of marriage, is a difficult one. Recent studies show that the rate of divorce among couples age 50 and older have doubled in the past two decades; in 2009, one out of every four divorcing couples were over the age of 50. In fact, a host of high-profile celebrities have split up over the past year, after decades of being married. This publicity sheds light on the fact that couples who have been together for a long time are not always guaranteed a life together forever.

What causes a couple who has been together a long time to finally call it quits?

The children are gone. The oft-heard refrain among unhappily married couples is: “We’re staying together for the sake of the children.” Once the children are out of the house — or even longer, as some couples stay together for the sake of their adult children — the glue that held a marriage together is gone, and couples are left with nothing more to do than head to divorce court.

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 Posted on December 00, 0000 in Division of Property

My spouse and I have been married 15 years. I want to get a divorce, but I have been a stay-at-home mom for the past 10 years. I have no money, and everything is in my spouse's name. I do not know how I will be able to start over from scratch.

Questions similar to the one above are often posted to social media and divorce-related websites, and understandably, those in these situations are concerned. When it comes to divorce, there is a difference between marital and separate property, and separate property is not involved in the division of property. But simply because one spouse's name is not on a title does not make it separate property.

Property Division in Illinois Divorce

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 Posted on December 00, 0000 in Division of Property

Taboos regarding cohabitation are quickly becoming passe as many of today’s couples are opting to live together before – and sometimes in lieu of – marriage. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, unmarried couples comprised 45 percent of all U.S. households in 2010. But until recently, unmarried Illinois couples who ended a relationship had no rights to enforce property claims against an ex-partner, or otherwise divide assets, due to their unmarried status.

Blumenthal v. Brewer: Allowing Property Claims against Unmarried Ex-Partner

In Blumenthal v. Brewer, the Chicago couple had been in a committed relationship for 26 years. They lived together, commingled assets, and raised three children. In all ways, they acted as a married couple. Yet they were unmarried due to same-sex marriage being illegal in Illinois. Brewer, an attorney, had stayed home for several years to raise the children. Her partner, however, built a lucrative medical practice. At the end of the relationship, Blumenthal’s net worth was $500,000 more than Brewer’s.

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 Posted on December 00, 0000 in Divorce

Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. If you have access to a computer or smartphone, you most likely have an account on at least one social media site. They are a great way to connect with far-flung family and friends, post photos and updates about what is going on in your life, and even vent now and again. However, if you are involved in a divorce or child custody case, what you post on social media could negatively impact the outcome of those cases.

Many people believe that what they post on social media is a private interaction between them and 350 of their closest friends. And while there are privacy settings users can put in place to restrict non-friends or followers to see their photos or read their updates, many people’s pages do not employ these privacy settings. In fact, 80 percent of attorneys report combing through social media sites for evidence that can be used against the opposing party. Hence, even if your accounts are set to private, family, friends or even members of private online groups may be sharing information with your significant other.

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 Posted on December 00, 0000 in Division of Property

If you have been following the divorce saga of Illinois’ richest man, hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin, you may have read that his wife recently filed Court documents alleging that Griffin plans to end her exclusive occupancy of the couple’s marital home and will no longer pay upkeep costs.

While many of us cannot relate to the lives of the very wealthy, the case raises a question that comes up almost every time when meeting with a client for the first time — who gets to live in the marital home during the divorce?

Temporary Relief for Possession of Marital Home

In most divorces, typically one party voluntarily moves out of the marital home until the Court awards it as part of the division of assets, or the couple sells it — whichever comes first. If children are involved, usually the parent who serves as the children’s primary caregiver retains possession of the house.

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 Posted on December 00, 0000 in Same-Sex Marriage

Same-sex marriage has been legal in Illinois since June 2014. Hence, gay and lesbian couples who choose to raise a family together now have an easier road to parenthood — whether through adoption or conception of children following marriage.

Same-Sex Stepparent Adoption in Illinois

Since passage of the new law, Illinois same-sex couples who have children following their marriage, whether biological or adopted, may place each partner’s name on a birth certificate. This is a change from prior law, when only a biological parent’s name was permitted to be listed.

Legalization of same-sex marriage also makes it easier for a non-biological parent to adopt his partner’s biological child. In many cases involving children of same-sex couples, the child is biologically related to one partner — either the mother who gave birth using donated sperm or a gay couple who used a surrogate and the husband’s own sperm.

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 Posted on December 00, 0000 in Child Support

If you have children, getting divorced means you are never truly free of your ex. The child custody and child support agreements mean you will, at minimum, be dealing with your ex when it comes to exchanging the children for visitation and dealing with support payments.

Yet while those child support payments are determined by a statutory formula based on the parents’ income, deductions and the child custody schedule itself, there are several other child-related expenses that an agreement does not always cover. Hence, this means a lot of unnecessary friction that can often land parents back in court.

Payment of Child-Related Costs: There is an App for That

Given today’s high-tech world, it should come as no surprise that there is now an app — several, in fact — designed to help make the process of paying for child-related expenses a lot less contentious. The apps, however, are not designed to track payment of child support. Instead, they track the “extras” that go into raising children — activities fees, sports equipment and uniforms, class trips and even, payment of medical co-pays and deductibles.

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 Posted on December 00, 0000 in Division of Property

Many couples, especially those with a high-net worth, own a business that is not only their largest asset, but their sole source of income. When these couples divorce, difficult issues arise such as how to value the business, whether it should be sold or divided and, if divided, which spouse should receives the business and how should the other spouse be paid for his share.

Illinois Business Valuation

In order determine the division of assets in a divorce, the assets must first be assigned a value. However, determining the value of a business is not as easy. For an investment account, you simply look at the balance on any given day, or for a vehicle, you can look up the Kelley Blue Book value.

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 Posted on December 00, 0000 in Divorce

There are a variety of online companies that offer document preparation and do-it-yourself forms for couples going through a divorce or needing assistance with child custody issues. These sites promise to save users significant amounts of money in attorney fees and to resolve their issues amicably and without protracted litigation. However, document preparation sites are a poor substitute for the advice of a qualified, experienced legal professional.

Listed below are suggestions to consider before deciding to handle any family law issue on your own.

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