Posted on January 17, 2019 in Property Division

It can be difficult to continue to make house mortgage payments on your own after your divorce. However, you may be able to keep your marital home for the foreseeable future if you are able to get a reverse mortgage on your house. Reverse mortgages are available to people who are at least 62 years old and have a large amount of equity in their home – usually at least 50 percent. You use the money you receive from a reverse mortgage to pay off the remainder of what you owe on your home mortgage, with the surplus available for other expenses. Gray divorcees should consider whether a reverse mortgage could help them during the division of property, though there are risks.

How It Works

Assuming that you qualify, you can apply for a reverse mortgage – also known as a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage – with lenders who specialize in this type of loan. The amount of money that you can borrow will increase in conjunction with your age and the value of the property. With a reverse mortgage, you no longer make mortgage payments on your home or payments on the loan as long as you remain in the house. The loan and interest are due when:

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 Posted on December 12, 2018 in Divorce

Going through a divorce can put you at risk of identity theft by your spouse, who knows much of your personal information and may be motivated to use it against you. He or she may steal your identity for financial gain or revenge. Even if your spouse has no history of stealing from you, the stress of divorce may cause him or her to behave unusually. If you do not protect yourself in time, identity theft can drain your financial resources and ruin your credit rating.

Prevention

You should act during your divorce as though your personal information is vulnerable, even if the likelihood that your spouse would steal your identity seems remote. Your spouse knows enough about you to circumvent some of the security measures that protect your private accounts. At the beginning of your divorce, you should:

• Run a credit report so you are aware of all the financial accounts you are connected to and may be liable for;

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 Posted on December 04, 2018 in Child Support

Losing your job and being forced into retirement normally qualifies as a change of circumstances that will allow you to reduce your child support payments. The recent decision for In re Marriage of Verhines shows that a court will consider more than income to determine a parent’s child support obligation in high-income cases. The Illinois appellate court said that there were unique circumstances in this case as opposed to a normal request for child support relief.

Case Background

A 65-year-old divorced father of a teenage son initially requested a reduction of his child support payments in December 2015 after his forced termination from his previous position as an executive at a packaging company. The father was paying $3,043 per month based on his previous income but effectively entered retirement because he was unable to secure another full-time executive position at his age. A trial court reduced his child support payments to $1,700 per month, claiming that the father’s income was $78,000 per year and that he could not be expected to withdraw from his retirement benefits to maintain the same level of child support payments. He had previously taken $400,000 out of his retirement account to pay for personal expenses.

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 Posted on November 10, 2018 in Divorce

Statistics from the Pentagon show that 3.1 percent of the married members of the U.S. Military divorced in 2017. The Pentagon calculated the percentage from the number of married members at the beginning of the year and the number of reported divorces by the end of the year. It is difficult to compare the military divorce rate to the overall divorce rate in the U.S. because they are collected and measured differently. The national divorce rate is expressed as the number of divorces per 1,000 people. Still, military divorce data can show trends and subgroups that have a higher rate of divorce.

Divorce Numbers

The military divorce rate has remained around 3 percent for the past four years, while the number of military members who are married has dropped to around 51 percent. Researchers consider millennials to be largely responsible for the declining marriage rate, which also means fewer divorces. However, the military marriage rate is still higher than the national average. Other military divorce statistics show some interesting trends:

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 Posted on November 03, 2018 in Paternity

As a father, you cannot forgo your financial obligation to your biological children, even if you no longer see them after divorcing or separating from their mother. However, you may not be required to make child support payments if you are not the child’s father. Family law courts prefer for a child to have two legally established parents for purposes of support and security. If the court presumes that you are the father, you will need to file a form stating that you deny paternity of the child.

Establishing Paternity

Illinois law assumes that you are the biological father of a child if you were married to the mother during the child’s conception or birth. If you have never been married to the mother, you can still be the legal father if:

• You sign a Voluntary Acknowledgment of Paternity form;
• Illinois Child Support Services enters an order than names you as the father; or

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 Posted on October 10, 2018 in Divorce

A long-term study on the social effects of divorce found that people are more likely to divorce when others in their social circle have already divorced. According to the data, a person’s likelihood of divorcing increased by:

• 75 percent when a friend divorced;
• 147 percent when multiple friends divorced;
• 22 percent when a sibling divorced; and
• 50 percent when a co-worker divorced.

Researchers refer to groups of friends divorcing around the same time as divorce clusters. Some observers have wondered whether divorce may be contagious – not as a virus but as a social influence. A friend’s divorce may help you decide to divorce but is unlikely to be the cause of your divorce.

Living Evidence

Many divorcees needed years to conclude that their marriages were broken beyond repair and they were better off getting divorced. Uncertainty about your life after a divorce may keep you in a marriage that you know is not working. When a friend divorces, you have an example of what life after a divorce may be like. Your friend’s experience may give you a positive impression of divorce if he or she:

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 Posted on September 15, 2018 in Property Division

You have a sentimental and monetary decision to make in regards to what you should do with your engagement and wedding rings after your divorce. There are three options:

• Sell the rings;
• Keep the rings; or
• Give the rings back to your former spouse if he or she gave them to you.

Studies have found that Americans spend more than $6,000 on average for an engagement ring, and that average may be more than $8,000 in Illinois. Thus, the fate of your rings is highly valuable to you and your former spouse.

Selling the Rings

Illinois courts consider engagement and wedding rings to be gifts between spouses, which means they are separate from marital property. As the owner of the rings, you have the right to sell them and keep all of the proceeds. A premarital agreement could create an exception if the agreement states that you must either return the ring to the original purchaser or share its value as marital property. The value of your rings can still affect your division of property, even if they are not part of the marital property. The court has the discretion to compensate a spouse in the division of property if the other spouse has significant nonmarital properties.

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 Posted on July 14, 2018 in Child Custody

Parents commonly disagree on how much supervision and protection their children need. While many parents seek a balance between freedom and control, some parents skew heavily towards one side. Helicopter parents believe their constant involvement protects their children and guides them towards the right path. Free-range parents believe that giving their children independence teaches them self-sufficiency. Both parenting styles have some merit, but laws favor helicopter parenting over free-range parenting because allowing a child to roam freely can be viewed as neglect. A divorcing parent who believes in a free-range style may also be at a disadvantage when a court determines the allocation of parental responsibilities.

Definition of Neglect

Parents in a divorce may accuse each other of neglect as a reason why they should be the children’s primary parent. Illinois has a legal definition of child neglect that includes:

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 Posted on July 05, 2018 in Divorce

Your mind can convince itself that you are not feeling stressed or depressed, but your body is more difficult to fool. Thus, your body may surprise you by feeling ill during your divorce. If your divorce is not causing you some stress, you either have nerves of steel or are completely oblivious to the high stakes of your divorce. Stress puts your body on a state of high alert as it prepares to react to a real or perceived threat. The constant stress of a divorce can wear your body down, and the mental strain may cause you to make poor decisions that do additional harm to your body. Here are seven symptoms that divorce-related stress can cause:

1. Weakened Immune System: People who experience excessive stress are often more susceptible to contracting colds and illnesses. Stress strains your body and makes it less capable of defending against sickness.
2. Fatigue and Insomnia: High levels of stress may cause your body to secrete hormones that tire you out but also make it more difficult for you to fall asleep. Insomnia can cause additional fatigue and stress, which perpetuates the cycle.

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 Posted on June 29, 2018 in Child Support

Each parent’s net income helps determine the total child support obligation owed to pay for the expenses of raising their shared children. Illinois’ Supreme Court has defined child support income as a gain to a parent’s wealth that allows him or her to better support the children. Income commonly comes from recurring sources such as job wages and gifts but also includes one-time, lump-sum payments, such as a personal injury award. A sudden gain of thousands of dollars changes the amount of money a parent has available to pay child support, at least temporarily. However, Illinois courts do not count the entire personal injury award as part of a parent’s child support income. A recent case helped define how much of the award can go towards child support.

Break Down

The total award or settlement in a personal injury case is meant to pay for specific damages related to the injury, including:

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