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Divorce is a complex emotional and financial event. This is true for couples regardless of their financial status. Wealthy couples with high assets will face a unique set of challenges and stress during their divorce. You and your spouse will need to work through the emotions of a divorce and defend the financial assets you have built. You will also have the difficult task of sorting through your stocks, property, IRAs and 401k accounts. Additionally, in many cases, you will need to investigate your spouse's finances to ensure that you have identified all available assets to divide in the divorce. In many high asset divorces, property division can become the central issue.
Protect Assets with a Prenuptial Agreement
While prenuptial agreements are not just for the wealthy, it is probably a good idea for wealthy couples to consider drafting such a contract. Under Illinois law, couples can use a prenuptial agreement to make decisions about their assets and other issues that may arise in a divorce. Issues that you can incorporate in your prenuptial include:
After a divorce you may soon find that you would like to move. The reason for the move could be to advance your career or to simply restart your life after the divorce. Making the decision to relocate can become complex if there are children involved—the court requires custodial parents to seek approval for a move.
Recent changes to Illinois family law have attempted to simplify relocation rules and allow parents to relocate without seeking court approval. If you are considering a relocation, then you should understand how these new laws may or may not impact your relocation.
Moves Between 25 and 50 Miles
The idea of seeking approval for every move may seem daunting. However, there is no need to worry. The relocation law does not apply to every move you may want to make. Whether the law applies depends on the child's primary residence and where you may want to move.
Late-in-life divorces, often referred to as “gray” or “silver” divorces, are becoming more common in the United States. While these divorces are more common and acceptable, many senior Americans do not realize the impact that divorcing or remarrying may have on their retirement and Social Security benefits. It is an important issue since Social Security is the primary source of income for many senior Americans. Understanding the impact divorce may have on your retirement future can help you navigate your divorce and avoid making costly errors.
Divorce May Impact Your Social Security Benefits
The impact of your divorce on Social Security depends on how long you were married to your spouse and whether you decide to remarry.
When a couple finally decides to divorce, one spouse may be anxious to start the divorce and move on with his or her life. In the spouse's haste to start moving on he or she may move out and not provide his or her soon-to-be former spouse information about their new address. He or she may do this and not realize that Illinois law requires each spouse to provide legal notice about the divorce. This may be frustrating for the spouse who has not moved, and may be additionally concerned that he or she will need to put his or her divorce on hold.
How Do I Notify My Spouse About Our Divorce?
In most divorces, the spouse seeking the divorce will need to provide his or her spouse with a copy of the divorce petition and any support documents. These documents must be served, or delivered, to the non-filing spouse. Service is usually completed by a local sheriff or a private process server. Most likely, you will need to pay a fee to the process server before he or she will serve your spouse. Once the fee is paid and your spouse has been served, your spouse will have a certain amount of time to respond to your divorce petition.
Funding a divorce can be very difficult for a couple. This is especially true if one spouse is a stay-at-home parent and depends on the other spouse for income. Some spouses come up with creative ways to fund their divorce, like a Geneva, Illinois woman who went to a crowdfunding site to fund her divorce.
Making sure you are able to pay for your divorce is important. If you are considering divorce and concerned about paying for your divorce, it is important that you understand the variety of options available to you before proceeding any further.
Strategies to Pay for Your Divorce
If your divorce involves serious issues such as spousal support, property division, or child custody, you will likely need legal representation. When spouses head to court to begin the divorce process and one spouse has legal representation, the spouse who has an attorney has an advantage during any legal battles. Of course, if you need an attorney, you may not know how to fund it; in this case, consider the following options:
Decisions about child custody and child support are two of the most difficult issues with which divorcing parents must grapple. Deciding where your children will live and how best to support their needs is emotionally stressful for divorcing parents.
While making these critical decisions it is important that parents also understand that child support can also include college contribution payments. These payments, designed to help fully or partially cover the cost of your child's education, are just as important as child support payments.
What is a College Contribution Payment?
College contribution payments are payments from parents to help a student pay for the costs of some college expenses. Typically, college contribution payments begin when child support payments end. Recent updates to Illinois law were designed to help divorced parents support their child through college. The law makes several requirements and sets standards, which include:
Most divorcing spouses simply want the divorce to be over as soon as possible. Oftentimes a couple will work together to move the divorce forward and finalize the divorce. In some cases, however, a spouse may ask that the court award attorney’s fees to help cover the cost of the divorce.
While it is rare, it is possible that a court may decide to award one party attorney fees. This can be good news for a spouse if he or she does not have a significant amount of money and needs assistance funding his or her legal costs.
Can a Court Award Attorney’s Fees?
The Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act allows family law judges the option to award attorney’s fees to a litigant. However, the decision to award, or to not award, fees will depend on the particular facts of the case. Generally, a court will only award attorney’s fees under the following circumstances:
Many families decide to expand by adopting internationally. Yet international adoptions can be costly and may take longer than domestic adoptions. However, once adoptions are complete, parents and their adoptive child can begin to bond as a family.
Adoptions are legal once they are complete; still, many adoptive families may want to consider readoption once they return to the United States. Readoption is not required under Illinois law, although there are many benefits for both the adoptive parent and children. The process is simple and can be a great way for families to celebrate the adoption.
Why Should We Readopt?
The most important reason for readopting is that it legally terminates the biological parents’ rights. This simple process will help protect you and your family against any potential legal issues. While this is rare, the process serves as an extra protection for adoptive parents.
Divorces can be lengthy, costly, emotional, and very difficult for families. Moreover, several significant issues must be addressed with regard to any children involved.
Whether you are the custodial parent or not, decisions about your child's financial stability are critical and require your full attention. Understanding child support and how it works can help you make the best decisions about your child's care and welfare.
What is Child Support?
Under the law you are responsible for providing your child with financial support. Child support is the money paid to the custodial parent from the non-custodial parent. Generally, child support is paid until a child is 18. Support may be paid for a longer period of time if the child is 19 and in high school or has a disability that requires support. The amount of support can be modified over time if approved by a court and payments are made either directly or indirectly.
The Illinois Adoption Registry and Medical Information Exchange (IARMIE) program allows birth parents to share important informations with adoptive families and adopted children. Adoptive children may decide that they would like to contact their birth parents and know more about their history. This may be because a child wants to understand aspects of his or her family history or to know more about his or her medical or mental health history. The ability to obtain this type of information can be critical to adopted children.
In the past, questions about birth parents may have been difficult to obtain. However, it is now possible for adopted children to get basic information about their birth parents while allowing parents to remain anonymous. If you are a prospective adoptive parent, adopted child seeking information on your birth parents, or parent considering adoption, it is important to understand how the Illinois Adoption Registry works.
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