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Recent Blog Posts
How are College Expenses Handled During a Divorce?
College is not cheap. Since the 1980s, college tuition costs have risen more than 200 percent for public universities across the country, making covering the expense of higher education more difficult than ever. Because of this, young adults are living with their parents longer than any generation prior to them. For parents getting a divorce, paying for their children’s college education can be a point of contention during the divorce negotiations. Fortunately, Illinois law has included provisions in the Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (IMDMA) on how post-secondary education expenses are distributed between parents.
Covering the Costs
The IMDMA allows courts to allocate costs to either or both parents based on a variety of factors. The judge can order that property allocated to either spouse during the asset division process be used to pay for post-secondary education, either now or when the time comes. Child support payments can also be extended beyond when the child turns 18 for the purpose of paying for college. A variety of things can be included in college costs, as long as the costs are accrued before the child’s 23rd birthday, or in some cases, the child’s 25th birthday. These costs can include:
Exploring the Reasons to Get a Postnuptial Agreement
Almost everyone has heard of a prenuptial agreement. Most of what many people know comes from movies or television shows portraying a woman marrying a wealthy man and signing a prenuptial agreement to protect his riches. Prenuptial agreements and postnuptial agreements come from the same family of legal documents and can do just about the same things. Both agreements can dictate which property is and is not marital property, how that property will be divided in the event of a divorce and the terms of spousal maintenance, among other things. The thing that differs between a prenuptial and postnuptial agreement is when the agreement is signed. A prenuptial agreement is signed before the wedding and a postnuptial agreement is signed after the wedding. Here are a couple of situations in which you may want to consider getting a postnuptial agreement:
How to Keep Your Illinois Divorce Costs as Low as Possible
Nothing in this world is free and that holds true for a divorce. The estimates available for the average cost of getting a divorce differ greatly depending on the source. Some sources state you can get a “do-it-yourself” divorce for a couple of hundred dollars, while other sources state that a litigated divorce can cost upwards of $100,000. Certain things can affect the cost of a divorce, such as the type of divorce you get, where you live, the retainer cost for your attorney and your attorney’s hourly rate. The cost of getting a divorce can seem daunting, but there are some things you can do to help keep those costs down.
- Choose the Right Type of Divorce for Your Situation: When it comes to divorce, you have a few options. You can choose between a traditional litigated divorce, a mediated divorce or a collaborative divorce. Typically, the most expensive type of divorce is a litigated one and can cost you big time when it comes to court costs, filing fees, and attorney rates. If you and your spouse are willing to work together with one person who is knowledgeable of family law, a mediated divorce might work, which reduces the cost of two attorneys to one. If you and your spouse are somewhat contentious but you do not want to litigate the divorce, a collaborative divorce might work for you.
Can a Parent’s Mental Health Impact Parenting Time in Illinois?
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), one out of every five American adults will experience a mental illness at some point in their lives and nearly 10 million adults live with a chronic and serious mental illness. Mental illnesses can vary greatly when it comes to the severity and how they affect your life. Having a mental illness can mean you have schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, an eating disorder or even post-traumatic stress disorder. By far, the most common mental illnesses are depression, which affects around seven percent of adults, and anxiety disorders, which affect around 18.1 percent of adults.
When it comes to divorce, mental illness can definitely play a part in how the divorce is hashed out. Depending on the type and severity of the mental illness, it can even affect things such as parenting time and parental responsibilities in a divorce.
Three Questions You Should Ask Yourself if You Plan to Adopt as a Single Parent
The “nuclear family” was traditionally seen as the ideal American family – a mother, a father, one or two children and perhaps a dog. Now, there are many types of families that exist in the U.S., each of which is just as loving as the traditional family unit. Households containing just a single parent have increased dramatically since 1960 – when only around nine percent of children were being raised by a single parent. Now, around 27 percent of American children are being raised by a single parent. For some, adoption is the way they have chosen to grow their family, even when it comes to people who are not married. Being a single parent is difficult, even when the child is your biological child. If you are a single parent who is considering adoption, here are a few questions you should ask yourself:
Can I Modify My Illinois Child Support Order?
No two divorces are ever the same because no two families are ever the same. However, one constant that will always be present in divorce cases involving children is child support. In the state of Illinois, child support is an obligation that both parents have to a child. The state believes that parents have the financial responsibility of providing for their child, even if they are not a part of their child’s life in any other way. Child support is paid to the child’s main caregiver, typically the parent with the majority of parenting time, until the child graduates from high school or turns 18, whichever comes later. The amount of child support that is paid depends on a variety of factors, including the number of children who are receiving child support, the income of both parents and how much time the children are spending with each parent.
Do Not Forget About the Right of First Refusal During Parenting Time Negotiations
Co-parenting is not easy. Balancing the responsibilities of taking care of children between you and your co-parent is challenging even for couples who are together. When you become a single parent, balancing these responsibilities become more difficult to manage. Many divorcing parents often worry about the fact that they will most likely have to split their parenting time with their soon-to-be-ex-spouse. It is hard for many parents to cope with the fact that they may not see their children every day anymore or be there for every one of their child’s milestones or achievements. One small solace that can be awarded to divorcing parents is what is known as the right of first refusal.
Dealing With Marital Debt During an Illinois Divorce
The majority of your negotiations during your divorce will involve you and your spouse fighting over what each of you wants out of the divorce. One of the only things you and your spouse will not be fighting to keep are the debts that the two of you incurred during your marriage. In an ideal world, you and your spouse would each walk away from the marriage with only the debts that you each created, but that is not how divorce works. Illinois divides marital assets and debts on an equitable basis, which typically means you will only be responsible for the debts that you have the means to repay. If you and your spouse have a difference in income, the spouse with the higher income will typically be responsible for more of the marital debt.
Will Getting a Divorce Affect My Credit Score?
For many people, divorce can put a big financial strain on the family. The cost of getting divorced is estimated to be anywhere from a couple of thousand of dollars to more than $100,000 if you have an extensive list of issues you must settle and a combative spouse. In addition to the cost of getting the divorce, your finances can change because you are switching to a one-adult household with less income and similar expenses. Many couples worry about what a divorce will do to their credit score and for good reason. Getting a divorce will not lower your credit score by itself, but there are things that happen throughout the divorce and the asset division process that could negatively affect your credit score:
- You Have Not Closed Your Joint Accounts Yet: Many couples simplify their finances during the marriage by having joint accounts. These can be bank accounts, credit card accounts or even investment accounts. During a divorce, these accounts must be distributed to both spouses, but it can take time to do that and to open new accounts in your own name. If your spouse still has access to accounts that have your name on them, they can do things that can negatively affect your credit score, such as accruing charges or overspending on a credit card account.
Is My Marriage Over? Four Signs You Should Consider Divorce
Marriage is not easy. You will have good days and bad days. When the bad days happen more often than the good days, you may begin to wonder if you should even still be married. You may wonder if your marriage is over and what that means, but there is no universal answer to that question. For some people, the best thing to do is to get a divorce, while other couples are able to work things out and rebuild their marriage. The decision is never easy, but here are a few common signs that you may want to consider divorce as your best option:
- You and Your Spouse Do Not Communicate: Communication is key to any successful relationship, especially a marriage. When you do not communicate with your partner, you can easily drift apart, which makes for an unhappy marriage. Lack of communication can indicate that there are deeper issues that need to be solved than just learning how to communicate again.
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