Division of Property

Why Having Proper Legal Representation Matters in Your Maryland Divorce, Even if You Are Resolving Your Issues Through a Settlement

October 15, 2021 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

Failing to obtain experienced legal counsel is often a mistake in a divorce case, even if you and your spouse are seeking to resolve the matter by agreement. That’s especially true if your spouse has retained an attorney. Your skilled Maryland divorce lawyer can help you assess whether or not the agreement proposed to you is genuinely fair to you, and whether or not a judge might award you significantly more if you litigated the matter. Your attorney can also help you identify harmful provisions in the agreement that might be unenforceable under either Maryland family law or Maryland contract law.

Proceeding on your own, especially if your spouse has legal representation, can expose you to serious risks. Take, as an example, the divorce case of C.G. and K.G., a Maryland couple with no children who decided to end their decade-long marriage in 2018.

By early 2019, the couple had mutually worked out a marital settlement that divided their property.

The Role a Trustee May Play in the Distribution of Your Marital Assets in a Maryland Divorce

September 30, 2021 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

One of the biggest questions a divorcing couple in Maryland may face is “who gets the house?” Depending on the specific facts of your divorce and the ability of you and your spouse to reach mutual agreements about your marital property, the answer may be “neither of you.” Whether you end up resolving the question of property distribution through agreement or through litigation, you need someone who is keenly familiar with Maryland law, so make sure you have a knowledgeable Maryland divorce lawyer representing you throughout the process.

Take, for example, this divorce case from Charles County. The husband and wife were a couple who ran a working farm that produced naturally raised meats and local raw honey. The success of the farm, regrettably, outlasted that of the marriage, and the wife filed for divorce in 2015.

The spouses could not agree regarding how to distribute much of their marital property, including the marital home. Frequently, when the spouses cannot agree, the court will (as this judge did) appoint a trustee, who is a neutral third-party individual charged with selling the marital properties and then distributing the proceeds of those sales.

Why Getting the Procedural Timing Right in Your Maryland Divorce Case Can Be Critical to Your Success

September 17, 2021 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

In many walks of life, it is said that “timing is everything.” In the law, timing isn’t everything, but it definitely can be a crucial thing. Get your timing wrong in carrying out some procedural step in your case and that incorrect timing may have disastrous consequences. This is just another one (among the countless) reasons why, when your divorce is going through the legal process, you need a skilled Maryland divorce lawyer from beginning to end.

As a cautionary tale of what can go wrong when your timing is not correct, there’s this recent divorce case that originated in Prince George’s County. The couple litigated their divorce in 2020 and, on Jan. 7, 2021, the judge granted an absolute divorce. The divorce judgment also covered the marital home (ordering the wife to transfer her interest to the husband,) child custody, and child support.

The judgment did not, however, say how much child support the wife was required to pay the husband each month.

What to Do When Your Spouse Has Improperly Thwarted Your Rights Under the Terms of Your Maryland Separation Agreement

August 16, 2021 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

For many Marylanders going through a divorce, resolving issues through a separation agreement may seem like a good idea and, indeed, it very often is. It is not enough, though, simply to create an agreement; you need to be sure the agreement you get is the right agreement for you, and you need to be sure you are positioned to receive the benefits of the terms you negotiated. To do all of these things, you need an experienced Maryland divorce lawyer by your side every step of the way.

Cases from the courts in this state clearly highlight how, even after you’ve negotiated and executed a good agreement, your work may not yet be done. Take a look at this real-life divorce dispute from Baltimore County. The husband, an equine veterinarian, and the wife, a horseback riding instructor/polo coach, owned a farm in Freeland. When the horse-loving couple divorced, they executed a “Separation and Property Settlement Agreement,” which established several terms to which the spouses agreed.

Concerning the distribution of the farm they jointly owned, the contract set out four possible options, in order: (1) the wife buys out the husband, (2) if the wife declines, the husband could buy out the wife’s interest, (3) if both spouses decline, then the property could be sold by a real estate agent, or (4) the farm would be sold via a judicial sale.

Almost Any Marylander Going Through Divorce Can Benefit from the Services of a Good Family Law Attorney

July 30, 2021 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

Some people may convince themselves that they do not need a skilled Maryland divorce lawyer to handle their case. They may assume that, because they and their spouse do not dispute most issues, or because they do not have many assets, or because their case does not seem to involve anything that implicates complex issues of law, they can handle it themselves. That kind of thinking is something that you should avoid, as it could be incredibly costly to you. Some divorcing spouses think they can’t afford to hire an attorney. More likely, you can’t afford not to.

Here’s a real-life example of how it can go wrong. In June 2019, V. M.-J. filed for divorce. The case went to trial that November and the spouses didn’t have attorneys. The court’s judgment gave the husband 15% of the wife’s government pension and ordered the wife to transfer her interest in the home to the husband, conditioned on his refinancing the home solely in his own name within 90 days.

Dissatisfied with the outcome, the wife appealed. Her appellate argument was that the trial judge made a mistake in distributing the home and her pension because the husband did not file any court pleadings asking for these things.

Assigning Each Spouse’s Share of a Marital Home in Maryland that Was Purchased Before the Marriage and Appreciated During the Marriage

July 16, 2021 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

If you read enough appeals court decisions (and who doesn’t, right?) you’ll eventually come across the phrase ”abuse of discretion.” This generally means that an appeals court is bound to uphold what a trial court decided unless the trial judge committed some sort of blatant error. What you can take away from this quick lesson in “legalese” is that it is often very difficult to get a trial court’s judgment overturned on appeal. That’s why it pays to have a skilled Maryland divorce lawyer by your side from the very start, making sure your presentation to the trial court is the strongest it can be.

A recent divorce case from Montgomery County is a good example of what we mean. B.N. and his brother bought a home in Silver Spring in September 1997. Four years later, the brother deeded his interest in the home to B.N., making B.N. the sole owner.

One day later, B.N. married S.F. At the time the spouses married, the home had a value of $245,000 with $74,000 in equity.

What It Takes to Win (or Overcome) an Argument About Dissipation of Assets in a Maryland Divorce Case

March 1, 2021 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

Lawyers, of course, keep up with new rulings from the courts all the time to make certain they are up-to-date on the law in the areas where they practice. That’s important because, when you are working with the right Maryland divorce attorney, you have the benefit of a legal advocate who possesses a thorough, complete, and up-to-date knowledge of the law in this state.

Many court rulings, however, also have information that can be really useful for most anyone facing a particular circumstance, like going through a divorce. Take, as an example, this divorce case from Baltimore.

The wife filed for divorce in 2019 after 17 years of marriage. Each spouse accused the other of financial misconduct.

The Legal Effect that the Agreements You Made in Your Religious Marriage Ceremony Will — and Won’t — Have on Your Maryland Divorce

February 12, 2021 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

One of the things that makes divorce different than many other legal matters is something fundamental to many marriages. For lots of people, marriage (and, by extension, divorce) is a place where the secular and the sacred meet… where man’s laws intersect with God’s laws. Whatever your religion teaches about marriage and/or divorce, it is vitally important, if you are going through a divorce in Maryland, to understand how the civil laws of Maryland will view your situation. To get the answers about these kinds of issues, as well all the other issues your divorce case presents, look to an experienced Maryland family law attorney, who can offer you customized advice based on your specific situation.

Last year, this blog discussed a case involving two Islamic couples divorcing in Maryland. Both that case and a much newer divorce case recently decided by the Court of Special Appeals are illustrative of the problems that can arise for these couples in terms of interpreting the agreements they made during their religious marriage.

If you are someone going through a Maryland divorce after having gone through an Islamic marriage process (or some other religious marriage process with similar procedures), the most important thing to understand is not how your religion views those marital processes, but how the Maryland courts will see them.

The Importance of Making Sure the Maryland Marital Settlement Agreement You Sign is the Marital Settlement Agreement You Want

January 29, 2021 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

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, which is: be absolutely certain before you sign a contract on the bottom line because, once you do, it is generally very difficult to avoid the promises you made in that document. That’s true of a marital settlement agreement, as well, which is why you definitely should consult an experienced Maryland divorce attorney before signing one of those documents.

K.J. was a spouse whose divorce case was a clear example of “post-execution regret.” In 2011, with his marriage broken down, he signed a marital settlement agreement with his wife. One of the terms in that contract, “Paragraph 20,” stated that the husband would pay the wife 1/3 of any settlement or judgment he received from a personal injury lawsuit that was pending at the time of the divorce.

The injury case in question was not your ordinary case, though. It was a lawsuit arising from injuries the husband suffered in the Beirut barracks bombings of 1983, the defendant was the government of Iran, and the claim for damages was extremely large.

How the Maryland Court of Appeals’ Ruling in a Lead Paint Case May Have a Big Impact on Your Divorce Litigation

January 15, 2021 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

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 your divorce case, and a substantial change in the law can significantly influence how your divorce case is litigated. That’s one of the many places where having an experienced and diligent Maryland divorce attorney can benefit you, as your legal advocate will be up on the new laws and what you’ll need to succeed.

One of the bigger changes in Maryland law in 2020 was not something specific to divorce law. Maryland’s highest court, in a ruling related to a personal injury case about lead paint exposure, announced that Maryland was adopting a new standard for deciding whether or not expert testimony is admissible. That standard, called the Daubert standard (based upon the 1993 U.S. Supreme Court case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals) lays out several criteria a judge should use to decide whether an expert’s evidence should be admitted or excluded.

At this point, you may find yourself thinking, what does this have to do with my divorce case? Aren’t experts usually just a part of criminal cases, malpractice cases and personal injury lawsuits?