Posted on November 13, 2019 in Firm News

If you are contemplating divorce, you likely have a million things on your mind, but you should not have to worry about losing your fair share of marital wealth. After all, Texas law requires spouses to divide marital assets based upon what is just and right.

Unfortunately, divorcing spouses are not always honest about marital property. If you suspect your spouse of hiding assets, you likely want to add a forensic accountant to your divorce team. Furthermore, you may want to watch for evidence that your spouse is not being honest about marital property. While there are many places an unscrupulous spouse may try to hide marital wealth in the leadup to a divorce, here are three common ones:

1. Business investments

Your partner may have his or her own business. If the company is a separate property, your spouse may attempt to transfer marital wealth into the operation. If you do not catch the deception, it may diminish the amount you receive as part of your divorce settlement.

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 Posted on November 05, 2019 in Child Custody

After a divorce, it isn’t uncommon for parents to end up some distance from each other. One parent may be pursuing a career to make life better for his or her children while the other parent thinks that it is more important to stick close to family, friends and other sources of support. Naturally, parents who are a distance from their children worry that they’re going to lose those precious parent-child bonds.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Even if a parent is going to be at a distance from their kids most of the year, there are ways to manage the situation. Plans can even be written into your custody agreement to offer reassurance, provide guidelines for behavior and settle visitation disputes.

Here are some of the questions you should discuss with your attorney when planning for long-distance visitation with your child in a custody plan:

1. Who will do the traveling? If the child will travel to the other parent’s home, at what age do you and the other parent agree that the child can travel alone? It’s better to clarify that issue before a problematic incident occurs.

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 Posted on October 31, 2019 in Divorce

You may think you know your spouse pretty well, but all bets go out the window when a divorce is on the horizon. Anger, jealousy, spite or flat-out greed can make people do unexpected things.

Embittered spouses who know a divorce is coming have been known to wipe out the joint savings account or blow up the joint credit cards in any number of ways, including:

• Luxury purchases, including expensive new cars or boats
• Lavish gifts or support for a new romantic partner
• Expensive elective surgery designed to make themselves more attractive
• Extensive renovations on a home or building that is their personal property
• Buying an entire household worth of new furniture and other items for use after the divorce is over
• Buying entire new wardrobes, including expensive jewelry
• Gambling or high-risk investment schemes

Sometimes, their actions are merely thoughtless or compulsive. Other times, their spending is a deliberate attempt to waste the marital assets. The goal, in other words, may simply be to squander the money willy-nilly and deprive you of as much of your fair share of the joint assets as possible — while also sticking you with as much debt as they can.

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 Posted on October 22, 2019 in Divorce

It’s that time of year again when parents of college-aged children are busy filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for the coming school year. While any parent can find the FAFSA intimidating and hard to follow, parents who have recently separated or getting a divorce may be completely unsure how to proceed.

Here’s some information that may help you:

• The parent who fills out the FAFSA is the one that the student lived with the most over the last 12-month period.
• This may or may not be the parent who was awarded physical custody of the child in the divorce.
• If the custody was split evenly and it’s impossible to say which parent has custody for the purpose of federal student aid, the parent who financially supported the child the most fills out the FAFSA.
• Child support payments count as income for the child on the FAFSA.

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 Posted on October 15, 2019 in Family Law

The best time to talk about a prenuptial agreement is, quite frankly, when you have no intention of needing one. It can be difficult, however, to see the point of a prenup when you’re young, broke and running mostly on dreams.

It’s those dreams you need to protect.

While prenups used to be exclusively the domain of the ultra-wealthy seeking to protect their trust funds and family money and older people on their second marriages, that’s changed. Prenups today are the most important things that entrepreneurs (especially those in high-yield fields, like the tech industry) can have if they should end up unhappily wed.

A well-done prenup can insulate you from a number of the hazards of divorce:

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 Posted on October 15, 2019 in Firm News

Financial issues are some of the most common reasons modern marriages fall apart. Some financial issues, in particular, are often more damaging than others. Money issues are so common within modern marriages, in fact, that CNBC reports that more than 35% of people cite financial troubles as their biggest marital problem.

Just what types of financial issues are most likely to lead to strife within a marriage?

Concealing money – or debts

Once you marry someone, numerous aspects of your life become intertwined, and your finances are likely among them. While many married people – two out of every five married couples, in fact – admit to hiding money from one another, doing so can have catastrophic effects when it comes to trust. The same holds true when it comes to concealing debts. In many cases, one spouse’s financial moves can negatively impact the other, so withholding information about debts is likely to lead to considerable marital hardship.

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 Posted on October 11, 2019 in Family Law

Are you nervously anticipating your first mediation session over your child custody issues? You aren’t alone. Most parents who are going through a divorce feel the same anxiety when they’re trying to settle such an important issue.

Well, take heart: You’re already on the right path to a peaceful compromise with your soon-to-be ex-spouse over the kids because you’ve chosen to try mediation. While mediation isn’t always successful, the willingness to negotiate is always a positive sign.

In order to make the best use of mediation over a custody issue, here’s what you should remember:

1. Focus on what’s best for your child

If your child is very young, you can’t really ask his or her opinion on things, but older children often need to feel like they have some say in their future. Talk to your child in a neutral fashion about the possible visitation schedules or any changes you anticipate to their routine and get their take on what they would like to see.

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 Posted on October 04, 2019 in Child Custody

Child custody rules differ somewhat from state to state, and the rules in Texas are somewhat unique. If you’re approaching a custody battle with your child’s other parent, it helps to understand the language and process used to determine custody in this state.

Here are the answers to some of the most common questions we hear about custody:

1. What is a parent with custody called?

In Texas, someone with legal custody of a child is called that child’s managing conservator. Conservators may act alone or hold the position jointly with another person.

2. What does a child’s managing conservator do?

Typically, managing conservators make the decisions that are most important to the child’s well-being and future, including:

• Where the child will live

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 Posted on September 26, 2019 in Divorce

If you’ve been married for a while and you assumed your spouse’s last name after marriage, you may wonder how you can change your name to reflect your divorce.

You do have options — but you should also consider all of the angles before you start. Here’s what you need to know:

1. It’s easiest to have the name change added to the divorce

There are essentially two ways to have your name changed after a divorce. You can ask the court to include the order allowing your name change in the final decree of your divorce. Alternately, you can file what’s known as an Original Petition for Change of Name to have your name changed at a later point.

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 Posted on September 19, 2019 in Divorce

Given the availability of no-fault divorce, there’s really no reason to stay stuck in an unhappy marriage. However, you still have to follow all the correct procedures and steps if you want the court to grant you a divorce. Otherwise, you may find yourself facing serious criminal charges.

That’s the position that a 51-year-old Houston man is in after he forged his wife’s signature and the signature of a notary on his divorce petition, making it appear that his wife consented to all the terms of the divorce. Based on those papers, a family court judge was tricked into granting the uncontested divorce.

That divorce has since been vacated for fraud and Harris County police now want to bring the man in on charges of aggravated forgery. They were alerted to the incident because the man’s wife filed a complaint once she learned that she’d been divorced without either proper notice or her consent. He could face up to 10 years in prison as consequences for his actions.

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