Showing posts with label divorce settlement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label divorce settlement. Show all posts
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Friday, December 20, 2013
Celebrity Divorce Without Tabloids: It Can Be Done!
Without noise, paparazzi, or even appearance on a public docket, Tim Duncan and his ex finalized their divorce by settling it, in a non-public document. As with the Schwarzenegger/Shriver settlement, they decided that a long bitter public court battle wasn't anyone's best career move.
...and incidentally, an acknowledgement for the pointer and a hat tip, to Peter Salem of the AFCC, whose (co-edited) Family and Divorce Mediation: Models, Techniques and Applications was name-checked in the Onion article about Duncan!
...and incidentally, an acknowledgement for the pointer and a hat tip, to Peter Salem of the AFCC, whose (co-edited) Family and Divorce Mediation: Models, Techniques and Applications was name-checked in the Onion article about Duncan!
Monday, April 29, 2013
Friday, September 24, 2010
Are You and Your Fiancee Working From The Same Blueprint? The Pre-Nup Conversation as Marriage Insurance
Over at Gitlin Law Blog, Illinois family law attorney Joe Gitlin muses that marriages break down when (to use a metaphor which dates both him and me) the spouses aren't "building from the same blueprint".
This is consistent with my take: the crux of the decision to divorce isn't usually specifically about money, or sex, or intimacy, it's that moment, a year, a decade, four decades into the marriage, when one spouse says "This ISN'T the deal I thought I signed on for!"
I consult with folks frequently about whether they need, or want, a pre-marital agreement. The first part of that conversation explores whether the client, and the spouse-to-be, have ever talked seriously about the sorts of things that a pre-marital agreement might address: who's going to control the money? Are both spouses going to have accounts for "their own" money, and a joint "pot" out of which they'll pay joint expenses? Is the plan that one spouse will work, and the other will be a stay-at-home parent for a number of years? If one owns a house, what's the other's expectation as to what's going to happen with that house after the marriage?
Even if folks are okay with the "off-the-shelf" marriage contract, if they understand it, and each understands in advance what the other's expectations are, the chances that they'll manage a lasting marriage are increased.
With all respect to my friends in the floral, couture, and catering industries, marriage planning's less romantic, but more important than wedding planning, and almost nothing is less romantic than divorce court...
This is consistent with my take: the crux of the decision to divorce isn't usually specifically about money, or sex, or intimacy, it's that moment, a year, a decade, four decades into the marriage, when one spouse says "This ISN'T the deal I thought I signed on for!"
I consult with folks frequently about whether they need, or want, a pre-marital agreement. The first part of that conversation explores whether the client, and the spouse-to-be, have ever talked seriously about the sorts of things that a pre-marital agreement might address: who's going to control the money? Are both spouses going to have accounts for "their own" money, and a joint "pot" out of which they'll pay joint expenses? Is the plan that one spouse will work, and the other will be a stay-at-home parent for a number of years? If one owns a house, what's the other's expectation as to what's going to happen with that house after the marriage?
Even if folks are okay with the "off-the-shelf" marriage contract, if they understand it, and each understands in advance what the other's expectations are, the chances that they'll manage a lasting marriage are increased.
With all respect to my friends in the floral, couture, and catering industries, marriage planning's less romantic, but more important than wedding planning, and almost nothing is less romantic than divorce court...
Monday, May 10, 2010
Divorce, Italian Style?
The New York Times reports Italy's first "divorce trade show". I guess "Divorce, Italian Style" no longer carries quite the significance it once did.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Just In Time for The Holidays: When Is That Porsche With The Big Red Bow NOT A Gift?
Ms. Buie was married to Mr. Neighbors. Ms. Buie had previously sold a piece of real estate, and had some money in the bank, so shortly before Mr. Neighbors' birthday, she allowed him to take $60,000 of that money and buy himself a Porsche. . . . . . or so he thought.
As a California court has already observed, ". . . divorce unsettles many of the parties' significant plans and assumptions, no matter how carefully crafted. . ."*
There was, you see, apparently no writing from Buie to Neighbors saying something like "Here is my gift to you!", or if there was, nobody could find it by the time Buie and Neighbors got to court.
California law requires that there be a writing for such a "transmutation" of community property to separate property, except as to a
". . . gift between the spouses of clothing, wearing apparel, jewelry, or other tangible articles of a personal nature that is used solely or principally by the spouse to whom the gift is made and that is not substantial in value taking into account the circumstances of the marriage." **
The trial court said "Gift!", perhaps reasoning that a Porsche was, for a middle-aged husband in Southern California, of a "personal nature", the way clothing or wearing apparel or jewelry is for a middle-aged wife. He would, after all, no more expect her to drive his Porsche than he'd expect her to let him wear her fur coat and diamond earrings.
Not so fast, said the Court of Appeal. The legislative comments to the 1984 enactment of F.C. 852 were fairly explicit that an automobile isn't "a tangible article of a personal nature". In the absence of a writing, there's no gift transmutation of the car from community to Mr. Neighbor's separate property. Even more dismaying for him, since the money used was traceable to Ms. Buie's separate property house proceeds, and she also had never made a written waiver of her right of reimbursement, she was entitled to be reimbursed for her contribution, up to the remaining equity in the car. The car was in essence, all hers, not all his.
If you find a car in your driveway this month, with a card from your spouse on it, save, treasure and keep that card!
* Marriage of Destein (2001)
**California Family Code Sec. 852
As a California court has already observed, ". . . divorce unsettles many of the parties' significant plans and assumptions, no matter how carefully crafted. . ."*
There was, you see, apparently no writing from Buie to Neighbors saying something like "Here is my gift to you!", or if there was, nobody could find it by the time Buie and Neighbors got to court.
California law requires that there be a writing for such a "transmutation" of community property to separate property, except as to a
". . . gift between the spouses of clothing, wearing apparel, jewelry, or other tangible articles of a personal nature that is used solely or principally by the spouse to whom the gift is made and that is not substantial in value taking into account the circumstances of the marriage." **
The trial court said "Gift!", perhaps reasoning that a Porsche was, for a middle-aged husband in Southern California, of a "personal nature", the way clothing or wearing apparel or jewelry is for a middle-aged wife. He would, after all, no more expect her to drive his Porsche than he'd expect her to let him wear her fur coat and diamond earrings.
Not so fast, said the Court of Appeal. The legislative comments to the 1984 enactment of F.C. 852 were fairly explicit that an automobile isn't "a tangible article of a personal nature". In the absence of a writing, there's no gift transmutation of the car from community to Mr. Neighbor's separate property. Even more dismaying for him, since the money used was traceable to Ms. Buie's separate property house proceeds, and she also had never made a written waiver of her right of reimbursement, she was entitled to be reimbursed for her contribution, up to the remaining equity in the car. The car was in essence, all hers, not all his.
If you find a car in your driveway this month, with a card from your spouse on it, save, treasure and keep that card!
* Marriage of Destein (2001)
**California Family Code Sec. 852
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Chief Justice, Georgia Supreme Court, Says We Need to Combat Divorce The Way We Discourage Smoking
Georgia Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears (a divorcee) said "As a mechanism for signaling to young people the right time and the right person with whom to have a baby, marriage has no peer. . .
. . . Marriage is also the best child welfare, crime prevention and anti-poverty program we have. We must, therefore, protect it."
The good Justice did not elaborate on how she proposes to do this, though I'm guessing she would not go along with my proposal to make getting married significantly harder...
. . . Marriage is also the best child welfare, crime prevention and anti-poverty program we have. We must, therefore, protect it."
The good Justice did not elaborate on how she proposes to do this, though I'm guessing she would not go along with my proposal to make getting married significantly harder...
Friday, March 20, 2009
Possibly History's Coolest Divorce Settlement Offer
Per the books-on-disc version of Walter Issacson's biography of Albert Einstein, when Einstein became estranged from his wife, he proposed to her that in exchange for her consenting to a divorce, when he won the Nobel Prize, he would give her the prize money. He eventually did both.
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