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When considering filing for divorce, many people get nervous about when they think about the possibility of having to testify in court. While most divorce cases settle long before trial, testifying as part of the divorce case may be required.
When You May Have to Testify
There are typically three occasions when you may have to testify in a divorce case and they include the following:
Each of these occasions operates slightly differently. However, no matter when you testify, you will be placed under oath.
Your Obligations
As part of any legal proceeding you always have a duty to tell the court the truth. When you are called to testify and placed under oath, you are under some additional obligations—you do have to answer the questions you are asked, no matter how uncomfortable, unless your lawyer objects and the judge sustains the objection or unless you would incriminate yourself if you answered the question.
Many couples decide to live together without getting married—one partner may have already divorced and does not want to remarry. When couples decide to cohabitate, there are several legal and financial decisions that the couple needs to decide.
Illinois marriage law gives spouses certain rights, and if a cohabiting couple wants similar rights, they must establish these rights through a cohabitation agreement. A cohabitation agreement can help you and your partner decide what happens during your relationship and if it ends.
Why Would We Need a Cohabitation Agreement?
When you move in with your partner, you may not consider what might happen if you separate. However, you may want to protect your assets or leave instructions should something happen to you or your partner. Furthermore, Illinois does not recognize common law marriage. Therefore, no matter how long you have lived with your partner, if you do not have a cohabitation agreement, you will not have any legal rights to the assets you have acquired with your partner or make decisions on his or her behalf if he or she is incapacitated.
If you and your spouse decide to separate and you have children, then you must collectively make decisions regarding co-parenting and custody. As part of the decision, one of the parents may take on the responsibility of providing child support to the parent who has greater parental responsibility for the child. Under Illinois law, child support is determined by using a formula that calculates support as a percentage of the supporting parent’s net income. The exact percentage depends of the total number of children the parents have together.
When is Terminating Child Support Legal?
Once a court orders child support, the order is in effect until the court or other significant events terminate the order. Scenarios in which child support may be terminated including the following:
Divorce is most often an emotionally charged process for everyone involved. Former spouses may get caught in disputes and arguments during a divorce that can prolong divorce proceedings and make the process difficult for both parties. When this happens, it may be useful for a trained mediator to help the parties come to an agreement about their divorce.
If you and your spouse seem to be stuck at an impasse in your divorce, you may wish to consider mediation as a possibility to assist you in separating from one another.
What is Mediation?
During mediation, you and your spouse will develop your own divorce settlement. But rather than doing it alone, you work with a third party trained to help you both stay on track. Mediators do not take sides in the dispute; instead, the mediator makes suggestions during the process that are designed to help you and your spouse develop solutions.
Parental alienation occurs when one parent uses his or her influence to manipulate a child’s opinion of his or her other parent. Typically one parent convinces the child that he or she is the good parent and that the other parent is bad, or even evil. Sadly, these types of cases are common. When judges suspect parental alienation, it can drastically alter the way the court decides parenting time and custody.
Signs of Parental Alienation
There is a wide range of behaviors that may point to one parent trying to alienate his or her child from the other parent. Classic signs include the following:
Often times divorcing couples focus on ensuring that they continue to cultivate strong relationships with their children during and after a divorce. They work with the courts and their lawyers to carefully develop parenting and timesharing plans. However, there is another important relationship that may be negatively impacted by divorce: the grandparent and grandchild relationship.
A divorce rearranges the relationship between the divorcing couple and may also dissolve the relationship between the divorcing spouse and his or her in-laws. A divorce may leave the bad feelings between former in-laws and ex-spouses. Oftentimes, the negative feelings that may develop during a divorce are expressed, intentionally or unintentionally, when grandparents interact with their grandchild. It is important that ex-spouses maintain cordial relationships with each other and it is also important for grandparents to respect their former daughter or son-in law for the benefit of their grandchildren.
Deciding to divorce is difficult decision. Once a couple makes the decision to separate there are many stressful decisions to make as the divorce process moves along. Pets and companion animals can make the process easier for many people. It should not be surprising that deciding who gets to keep a pet is a common issue in divorce disputes.
The Law Views Family Pets as Property
Pets play a key role in the lives of many people and many of those people will also go through a divorce. This means that courts will decide who gets ownership of the pet when the couple divorces. The law views pets as property. Of course, pets mean a lot more to their owners than just property. However, in a courtroom, pets are treated similar to a record collection or heirloom jewelry. A court may never need to decide who gets ownership of the pet if both spouses agree who will keep it.
Oftentimes, one spouse is responsible for managing household finances, while the other spouse may not have a clear idea about the family’s income and expenses. Handling finances this way is fine when both spouses plan to stay in the marriage. However, if the marriage begins to deteriorate and divorce becomes a possibility, then the spouse handling family finances may try to take advantage of this situation by hiding assets.
Most divorces will involve the division of property, including marital financial assets. Spouses may hide assets in an attempt to avoid losing all or part of these assets in the divorce settlement. They may plan to then use these hidden assets for their own gain later on. Hiding financial assets is unethical and illegal.
Stay Involved in Household Finances
The easiest way to prevent your spouse from hiding assets is to manage household finances together from the beginning of the marriage. If your spouse is likely to hide assets it will be much more difficult to do so when you both are involved in making financial decisions. If your spouse already manages family finances, and you are considering divorce, then you should be aware of these commons signs that your spouse is hiding assets:
Under Illinois law, judges are required to equitably divide marital property in a divorce. This means that before a judge can figure out how to divide property, a court must first decide whether property is marital property. It is important for divorcing couples to understand how the court will view commingled property and the consequences of commingling property—a process that can be aided by an experienced attorney.
Fair Division is not Equal Division
It is important to understand that fair division of property does not mean property will be split equally; instead, courts will divide property so that the division is fair to the couple under the circumstances of the divorce. And ultimately, the difference between marital and non-marital property is not always clear.
Non-Marital Property
In Illinois, there are several types of property that are not considered marital. Generally, property acquired by one spouse before the marriage and any value increases or income from the property are not considered marital property. Non-marital property includes:
On January 1, 2016, Senate Bill 57 (SB57) will bring tremendous changes to various aspects of family law, including child custody and divorce. If you will be facing a child custody decision when SB57 goes into effect, then it is important that you understand how a court will make custody decisions under the new law.
Currently, Illinois law allows courts to award physical and legal custody to one, or both parents. The child will live with the parent awarded custody and the custodial parent will almost exclusively make decisions about the child’s care. The custodial parent is also the parent who will make nearly all decisions about how the child is raised. This will change under SB 57.
Under SB57 courts will allocate parental responsibilities between both parents. Therefore, both parents will share responsibility for making decision about their child’s care and how their child is raised.
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