Category: Divorce & Family Law

The Florida legislature recently passed legislation and the Supreme Court implemented new rules governing collaborative practice in family law.

A Florida District of Appeal Court recently upheld a trial court’s final judgment of dissolution of marriage requiring the husband, who was in prison, to pay child support. The trial court evidently imputed income to the incarcerated parent based upon his previously established earning ability.

Once you decide to get a divorce, the work of organizing your finances should begin in earnest. Both the organized and disorganized alike will be required to gather up financial documents.

Despite consensus between the Florida Bar’s Family Law Section and alimony reform advocates, it’s unlikely that Florida’s alimony laws will be overhauled this year. The Florida legislature twice sent reform legislation to Governor Rick Scott, who vetoed both efforts in 2014 and 2016.

More often than not divorce will put you at odds with a person who knows you well enough to push your buttons. Your spouse knows exactly what upsets you-whether it is forgetting the children's schedule or overspending or ruining your favorite holiday. The anxiety and strain attendant with the process can make communicating more challenging.

Divorce can be acrimonious. Spouses often wrestle over who gets the family home, the timeshare in the Keys or even the big screen TV. But, what about the family dog or cat? If the parties are going to split custody of the kids, then why not share the family pet.

Most people know if a party opposite you in litigation files for bankruptcy it would normally mean the litigation needs to cease at least until the bankruptcy case is over and possibly forever. A divorce proceeding creates some special exceptions to this normally rigid rule.

1. Is my retirement account a marital asset? Answer: Any contributions to a retirement account during marriage together with the increased value of those contributions due to market gains are considered a marital asset. The fact that the account is just in one spouse’s name and further that the contributions were made by the employee spouse or his or her employer does not affect the marital character of this account.

In Florida, the legal term for a divorce is “dissolution of marriage.” The two simple requirements to dissolve a marriage are: 1) one party must be a Florida resident for more than six months prior to filing and 2) one party must allege under oath that the marriage irretrievably broken. Each divorce encompasses a different set of circumstances.