A comedic TV commercial series features disgruntled car buyers hiding their identities behind masks and disguises. They are mortified because they found out, only after they made their purchase, that they ended up “paying too much” for their used car. There’s a little bit of a legal lesson in this,…
Most contested divorces are fact-intensive. They revolve around who did or didn’t do something, when a spouse purchased an asset (and what assets were used to make that purchase,) the amount of money a spouse did or did not earn, and so forth. However, issues of law can also impact…
In a divorce where there are no minor children, possibly the biggest single thing that you’ll need to address is the marital home. One spouse may desire to stay in the home, but that can be challenging if the home isn’t paid off. Certainly, you don’t want to be liable…
Finding out well after you’re divorced that your ex-spouse hid substantial marital wealth and assets during the divorce process is undeniably frustrating and infuriating. It is, however, also potentially the basis for legal action. Depending on the details of your divorce (such as whether you created a marital settlement agreement)…
One goal for divorce is to create closure and free up both spouses to move on with their separate lives. Sometimes, that means certain things financially like selling the marital home. If you think that the proposed sale is improper, whether because the sale price is too low, the broker…
Many of us are likely familiar with the stereotype: a marriage is irretrievably in breakdown and one spouse, sensing the end, decides to go out, drain the marital accounts and either blow that money or else hide it. This is something called “dissipation of assets” and it is potentially very…
In cases of divorce where businesses are among the spouses’ marital property, the issues can be very intricate. A value must be established for the business (just as it must be for every other marital asset), and this often requires the services of an accounting and business valuation expert. In…
Back in the 1990s, a famous politician once responded to a question under oath by noting that “it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.” While that answer might be puzzling to some, the reality is that, in the law, sometimes outcomes hinge upon small phrases or even single…
With modern technology comes modern problems. That can be true in divorce as in other legal areas. One aspect of this is the very contemporary issue of electronic/digital assets. Digital assets can be complicated, as one person’s electronic files may be housed on a computer, hard drive or other storage…
Distributing marital property can be one of the most complex elements of any divorce, especially one in which minor children are not involved. Sometimes, in order to achieve a genuinely equitable outcome, it may be necessary for a trial judge to order one spouse to make a monetary payment to…