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Savvy investors often buy one or more real estate properties. They rent the properties to tenants and receive rental income. While rental properties are a great way to earn passive income, addressing real estate property during a divorce is often complex. Many landlords are unsure of how rental properties will be dealt with during their divorce. If you or your spouse own one or more rental homes, speak to a divorce lawyer for help.
There are two main types of assets in an Illinois divorce. Marital assets are those assets acquired during the marriage. Separate assets are assets that a person owned before getting married, property acquired through inheritance, and property acquired through gift. If an asset is considered marital property, both spouses have a right to a share of the asset’s value. If an asset is non-marital, it belongs solely to the spouse who originally obtained the asset.
Ending a marriage means addressing several complicated issues, including marital property division and child-related concerns. Divorcing spouses in Illinois may use an alternative resolution method called mediation to discuss divorce issues and reach a resolution. Many people find that mediation allows them to avoid litigation and reach an out-of-court agreement that both spouses are happy with. However, mediation will only be successful if both spouses are committed to resolving disputes and willing to put in the effort needed to do so.
Divorce mediation almost always requires spouses to compromise on various issues. Before you start mediation, take some time to consider your priorities. What matters the most to you with regard to financial and child-related issues? What are you willing to give up? For example, you may be completely unwilling to consider a custody agreement that gives your spouse sole custody, but you are open to shared custody options. Maybe you are willing to move out of the shared marital residence, but you cannot bear to part with certain sentimental items or family heirlooms.
Divorcing spouses without children can walk away from the relationship after their divorce is complete. Even if they are subject to spousal support orders or other court orders, they are not forced to interact with each other the way divorcing spouses with children are forced to interact.
In a high-conflict divorce case involving children, parents are often unable to work together to raise children through a cooperative co-parenting relationship. Parallel parenting may offer an opportunity for high-conflict parents to reduce interaction and mitigate conflict while prioritizing their child’s best interests.
Research shows that conflict between parents has a profound effect on children’s development and wellbeing. Being exposed to parental arguments increases a child’s risk of developing depression, anxiety, and behavioral issues. Studies have found that high-conflict homes can even lead to reduced cognitive performance. Parallel parenting seeks to reduce the conflict between divorcing or divorced parents by reducing the amount of interaction between the parents.
In Illinois, physical custody of a child is called “parenting time.” When a parent has concerns about a child’s safety with the other parent, he or she may ask the court to impose certain parenting time restrictions. For example, a parent may request that the other parent’s parenting time be supervised by a third party. This is sometimes called “supervised visitation.”
If your child’s other parent or another party is seeking to restrict your parenting time, contact a child custody lawyer for legal advice and support specific to your situation.
Illinois law presumes that both parents are capable of providing a safe, loving environment for their children. The court only restricts parenting time if the court finds that unrestricted parenting time would “seriously endanger the child’s physical, mental, moral, or emotional health.”
In any divorce case, there are important financial issues to be determined. The spouses' assets and debts will need to be identified, classified, valued, and divided. Spouses may also be subject to child support and spousal support obligations.
If you are getting divorced, you may have questions about how your money and property will be dealt with. Specifically, you may wonder whether assets you received through inheritance are subject to division. Typically, inheritance is not divided between spouses in an Illinois divorce. However, as with many financial concerns during divorce, the answer is not always this straightforward.
In Illinois, property in a divorce falls into one of two categories: marital property and non-marital property. Marital property belongs to both spouses while non-marital property only belongs to one spouse. Typically, any asset or debt that a spouse earns during the marriage is classified as marital property. However, inheritance is an exception to this rule.
Being a stepparent can be challenging. However, it can also be deeply rewarding. Many times, a stepmom or stepdad becomes an essential figure in a child's life, acting as if he or she was the child's biological parent. However, stepparents do not have the same rights as biological parents. For example, if a stepparent divorces the child's biological parent, the stepparent has to no right to parenting time with the child. For this reason and many others, some stepparents choose to legally adopt their stepchildren.
The law says that children can only have two legal parents or guardians. If you want to adopt your stepchild and both of the child's biological parents are still living, one of the parents will need to relinquish his or her parental rights. In some cases, biological parents see that stepparent adoption is in their child's best interests. They fully cooperate with the adoption and willingly relinquish their own parental rights so that the stepparent can become the child's legal parent. If a biological parent agrees to the adoption, the stepparent adoption process is relatively straightforward. However, some parents refuse to give up their parental rights to allow the adoption to occur, even if this is in the child's best interests.
If you are engaged to be married, congratulations! Marriage can be a wonderful way to formalize a committed relationship. However, marriage is not without financial risk. One way married individuals can mitigate the financial risks associated with marriage and protect their financial future is by creating a prenuptial agreement.
Prenuptial agreements are becoming more and more popular, especially among millennials. In a study conducted by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, over 60 percent of the lawyers surveyed noticed an increased number of engaged couples seeking prenups. The increase is not surprising given the significant benefits associated with prenuptial agreements for both spouses in a marriage.
Prenuptial agreements, or prenups, are often misunderstood. These legal tools are not only useful for extremely wealthy couples. They provide benefits for married individuals of all ages, lifestyles, and income levels. Prenuptial agreements can provide benefits including:
Divorced parents and parents who never married are often subject to child support orders. Child support is a method for splitting the cost of raising a child between parents who are no longer together and ensures that the child will receive financial support from both parents. In 2016, Illinois changed the way child support is calculated. The amount that a parent pays is now based on both parents' net incomes, not just the paying parent's net income. Lawmakers changed the child support calculation method in order to ensure that child support obligations are fair and reasonable, given both parents' financial circumstances.
Before the court can calculate child support, parents must disclose all forms of income to the court. Unfortunately, some parents fail to disclose the income they earned "under the table." How can parents get a fair child support order if a parent receives cash income and fails to disclose it?
Childcare, medical expenses, afterschool tutoring, clothes, and groceries are just some of the many child-related expenses parents must manage. When a child is disabled, there are often additional expenses including specialized medical care and educational serves. If your child has an intellectual disability such as autism spectrum disorder, fetal alcohol syndrome, fragile X syndrome, or down syndrome, you may be able to extend the length of time that you receive child support from your child’s other parent.
Parents of children with disabilities often face a unique set of challenges both personally and financially. Raising neurotypical children is already expensive, but children with disabilities often require special medical care, therapy, educational services, and caregiving. The organization Autism Speaks estimates that the average lifetime cost of these services for a person with an intellectual disability is $1.4 to $2.4 million. Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) and other programs may help mitigate costs, however, government assistance is often not enough to cover all of these expenses.
The cryptocurrency finance market has grown quickly in the last few years. What was once a niche investment that many assumed would be a waste of money has now become mainstream. As more and more people invest in cryptocurrency and NFTs, these assets are increasingly used as vehicles for hiding money in a divorce. Divorcing individuals deserve a fair share of the marital estate – including a fair share of any digital currencies. If you are getting divorced and you believe your spouse is hiding assets using crypto or NFTs, contact an experienced divorce lawyer for help.
When spouses divorce, they can either negotiate an agreement about how to divide assets and debts or allow the court to decide for them. When the court divides assets, each spouse receives an equitable, or fair, share of property based on the spouses’ current financial circumstances, future earning capacity, and other factors.
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