Divorce can bring out many complicated issues, particularly when it comes to money. On the one hand, a nefarious spouse may try to deplete assets before the case is finalized. On the other hand, spouses continue to have bills and financial obligations that often require dissipating marital assets to pay.…
Few spouses, while happily married, stop to consider maintaining the proper legal segregation of assets they acquired separately before or during the marriage. This often leads to trouble when a spouse mixes his/her separate assets with marital property and, as a result, causes the law to view that asset as…
Sometimes, in divorce matters, a couple can seem to reach a mutual agreement on the distribution of their marital assets, only to uncover a sticking point later. Such was the case for one Florida couple, who battled over the division of the husband’s military pension. The Second District Court of…
A wife’s effort to claim to claim two burial plots as belonging solely to her failed as a result of an unfavorable 1st District Court of Appeal decision. The court concluded that, although the two plots were her separate assets when her aunt gave them to her, one of the…
A wife’s efforts to escape responsibility for a $13,500 credit card debt her husband ran up mere days before the wife filed for divorce proved unsuccessful. The debt, incurred to pay for the college education of the couple’s daughter, occurred during the marriage and was not the result of intentional…
A court’s contempt power can be an extremely important and effective tool in ensuring compliance in family law matters, as spouses may ignore court order to spite their exes. This power does come with some clearly delineated limits, though. The power to force a spouse to meet the terms of…
With Christmas having recently come and gone, many people likely received a new addition to an existing collection of possessions. For some, it may have been a new piece of jewelry; for others, perhaps a new power tool. When these collections of become an issue in a divorce, there is…
When a couple divorces, one of the integral elements of property division is separating marital assets from non-marital ones. A recent 4th District Court of Appeal ruling highlights that an asset’s origin at the time the couple marries is not the only criterion for ascertaining its classification. In the Jordan…
One of the central underlying concepts of divorce and marital property settlement is something called equitable distribution. Equitable distribution, which is required by the Florida Statutes, means that each spouse should receive a fair portion of the marital estate, and each should share in both the marital assets and the…
Many times when a client meets with their family law attorney in Fort Lauderdale, they question whether an asset is marital or non-marital. They also question their rights to the future income of marital and non-marital assets. In the case of Morenberg v. Morenberg, the Fourth District Court of Appeal…