Posted on February 28, 2014 in High Asset Divorce

Here in Illinois and across the country, the divorce rate has been rising among a certain unexpected demographic: people over 50. Whereas in 1990, only 10 percent of divorcing spouses were over the age of 50, today that number has increased to approximately 25 percent. It's a surprising trend, and one that has left many wondering what caused it.

The reasons seem to be based in gradual changes in our society. For one thing, people are simply living longer now than they ever did before. This means that by the time a couple reaches 50 years old, they can reasonably expect to have two or three decades left together. If the spouses are unhappy with their relationship, they are more likely to divorce and move on rather than spend this time in an unsuitable marriage.

The growing financial independence of women also plays a role. Women today are more likely to have a career of their own, and draw their own salary. In the past, a woman might have been reluctant to end her marriage out of fear of financial insecurity. Today, this fear is greatly diminished.

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 Posted on February 21, 2014 in High Asset Divorce

For years, researchers have studied the financial impact of divorce and the effect that the economy has on divorce rates. The financial downturn of 2008 certainly gave researchers a lot of new data to work with.

Many people might assume that when economic times are bad, divorce rates skyrocket as frustrated couples struggle to make ends meet, and even affluent, high-asset couples begin to feel the strain. According to the data, however, the reverse is true.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, American divorces took a nosedive in the aftermath of the 2008 recession. They reached a 40-year low during the recession and did not begin to rise again until after the economy began to improve.

Researchers say this is because divorcing couples are often concerned about their ability to manage their finances with only one income. This leads many couples to resist divorce during difficult economic times and simply wait until the economy improves. Once spouses can be reasonably assured that they will be able to maintain their lifestyle post-divorce, they are far more willing to separate.

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 Posted on February 14, 2014 in Child Custody

As many Illinois couples know, determining child custody arrangements during a divorce case can be a very painful experience. Agreeing to a parenting plan can be exhausting and emotionally taxing, especially in divorces that are hotly contested.

Unfortunately, these highly emotional situations can sometimes cause parents to act in a slightly irrational manner. During a breakup or divorce, retaliation is often considered by parents as a way to get back at the one another. Unfortunately, this behavior often harms the people who are most vulnerable in a child custody hearing — the children.

In one example of retaliatory behavior, a woman learned that her husband was having an affair with a business colleague. The affair was a conflict of interest for the man and was against the rules set by his company. He likely would have been fired if his employer had found out. The man's wife expressed an interest in reporting the man's misconduct to the company as a retaliatory action.

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 Posted on February 07, 2014 in High Asset Divorce

We have written in this blog before about high-asset divorces and the issues faced by those who experience them. High-asset divorces often involve complex financial instruments; often, special legal processes are required to successfully divide couple's assets and finalize the divorce. Generally speaking, the more assets and the more types of assets that a couple has, the more complex the divorce will be.

Here in Illinois, high-asset couples get divorced every day with the assistance of skilled attorneys. Fortunately, most of these divorces are much simpler than one that took place in New York between two real estate magnates.

The New York Times recently profiled the Swigs, a pair of high-profile real estate investors. Both came from wealthy families; together, they used their wealth to invest heavily in large New York properties.

Following the economic downturn near the end of the last decade, however, things took a turn for the worse. The Swigs fell heavily into debt as property values plummeted. Eventually, the strain of the financial troubles led to divorce.

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 Posted on January 31, 2014 in High Asset Divorce

Prenuptial agreements are an excellent way to protect your assets as you enter into a new marriage. With a relatively high divorce rate in this country, many Illinois residents are considering their second marriage.

Second marriages can be difficult for many people. For one thing, many couples who are on their second marriage are further along in life and have acquired a greater amount of assets and wealth. They may also have special considerations from the first marriage to consider, such as maintaining control of assets they wish to give to their children, for example. While these issues can be resolved in a high asset divorce, they can be handled much more quickly through the use of a prenuptial agreement.

Many people in their second marriage, then, choose to pursue a prenuptial agreement. A prenuptial agreement allows couples to dictate certain terms of a potential divorce before the marriage begins.

Prenuptial agreements are a difficult topic to broach for many soon-to-be spouses. This is because the prenuptial agreement is often considered just when a couple is planning their wedding. Many are unwilling to commit to a prenuptial agreement, feeling as that it is unnecessary.

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 Posted on January 24, 2014 in Alimony

In recent years, the concept of spousal support - better known as alimony - has come under attack by those who feel that society has outgrown the system. Spousal support is a legal agreement by which one spouse (in about 95 percent of cases, the male) is asked to pay a certain amount of money each month to his or her former spouse.

Alimony can have two different purposes. Temporary alimony lasts a certain number of months or years. It is intended to give the nonworking spouse time to gain the skills he or she needs to re-enter the job market.

Long-term or permanent alimony is intended to allow the nonworking spouse the ability to maintain the lifestyle he or she had before the divorce. The rationale for this type of alimony is that the nonworking spouse sacrificed multiple economic opportunities by exiting the job market; the alimony is intended to compensate the spouse for these lost opportunities.

Proponents of alimony reform argue that the process was created when divorce required an "at-fault" party and still supports that idea. Reformers argue that the alimony system provides nonworking spouses with an incentive to stay out of the workforce, harming the economy as a whole.

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 Posted on January 15, 2014 in Child Support

Here in Illinois and across the country, the laws governing child custody and child support change and shift from year to year, as state lawmakers work to adapt our laws to a changing society and seek out better ways to serve the interests of the child. Most of these new laws are incremental and enter the law books without much public notice. A recent child support bill in another state, however, recently garnered national attention.

The bill was created in the Wisconsin state legislature by a single representative. Ostensibly, the bill seeks to equalize the rights of the sexes in child support disputes. Some observers, however, have noticed a supposed ulterior motive in the wording of the new bill.

The bill puts a cap on the amount of child support that can be awarded in any given situation. If the bill were made into law, any income over $150,000 would be exempted from consideration when calculating child support. It would also alter many current child support agreements that do not fit the new standard.

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 Posted on January 08, 2014 in Child Support

The Congressional Research Service recently released new statistics outlining the current state of child support payments in America. The CRS is a nonpartisan organization that serves only the U.S.Congress, providing our nation's lawmakers with the information they need to shape our country's laws. The new report, then, is a snapshot of the state of the nation's child support system.

All the data comes from 2011, which is the most recent year for which data was available. The statistics show that there are over 14 million parents who do not live together. Half of these parents are noncustodial parents, who pay child support, and half are custodial parents, who receive support payments on behalf of the child.

Unfortunately, statistics show that many of these custodial parents are having difficulty receiving the full amount that they are owed. In 2011, over $23 billion was sent as child support. This is, however, only a portion of the full amount that is owed. The CRS report shows that less than 40 percent of custodial parents received the full amount that they were owed.

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 Posted on January 03, 2014 in High Asset Divorce

Often, people assume that a divorce is always doomed to devolve into a shouting match. Those who have never been through the process tend to believe that the legal actions are always taken in an open court, where skeletons are dragged out of the closet and dire accusations are leveled.

The truth is quite different. Many divorces are done out-of-court, using a settlement that is privately determined between the two parties and their attorneys.

It is a fact, however, that the divorce can bring on a great deal of negative feelings and acrimony between spouses. This acrimony can lead to disagreements that can hamper the negotiations process, making it more difficult to reach an agreement in a timely manner.

This is especially true in cases of high asset divorce, where a large number of valuable assets must be divided. The divorce settlement in these cases can be extremely complex; failure to cooperate can slow the negotiations to a crawl.

Cooperation can be hard to come by during a divorce, however. One expert recently released a number of guidelines for helping spouses deal with their negative feelings.

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 Posted on December 27, 2013 in Child Support

When a noncustodial father writes a check for child support each month, most people would assume that all the money goes straight to the custodial parent - or, more specifically, to the basic needs of the child. That is, after all, what child support is for, to provide for the needs of the children.

However, the truth is that under certain circumstances, only a portion of that child support reaches its intended destination. Here in Illinois, if the child is benefitting from government welfare programs, then a large percentage of the child support payment will be intercepted by the government.

Many families with separated parents make use of government welfare programs. When they do, the government expects to be repaid for the service as much as possible. So, when the noncustodial parent makes a child support payment, the state of Illinois takes all but $50 out of the check.

This means noncustodial parents, many of whom must work very hard to make their child support payments, only see a fraction of their efforts going directly to support their children.

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