Joanne Kleiner & Associates

Divorce

Feb 21

Common Mistakes That Can Occur During the Divorce Process

Mistakes That Are Commonly Made During a Divorce

If a divorce is contested or the particulars take a long time to finalize, the process can be a lengthy one; during this stressful time, a large number of mistakes can be made by either spouse. Each year, approximately 800,000 divorces occur across this country. While some of these divorces are finalized without issue, others go through turbulent events that are oftentimes caused by simple mistakes that could have been easily avoided.

Not Focusing on the Details of the Divorce

Many spouses who are going through a divorce try to disengage from the process as much as possible, which can create numerous problems. Any negotiations between the two spouses or arguments brought into court will need to be supported by myriad facts and documents from the marriage. Solely because he or she wants to get through the divorce quickly and without any additional distractions, there are times when a spouse may sign a divorce settlement without reading all the details. Of course, this is unwise. The agreement just signed might not be as it was described, and it may not be fair or equitable. Regardless of how anxious or weary you become, remember that focusing on the specifics is important.

This can also be an issue after the divorce has been finalized and child support payments are being made. If the right details about child care expenses aren’t recorded, the payments may end up being lower than they ought to be.

Making a Settlement That Doesn’t Take Future Events Into Account

When they are obtaining a divorce, many individuals focus on making a settlement agreement with their spouse that only takes the status quo into account, which means that the equitable split is made based solely on the current valuation of the marital assets. However, all sorts of future events could alter a person’s ability to live as she or he did before the occurrence. Some of the unfortunate possibilities that could take place following a divorce include:

  • A physical disability
  • A loss of a long-term job
  • A substantial depreciation of assets
  • Significant health problems in a child

Here’s an example. Suppose a perfectly reasonable agreement was made for paying future college expenses for a child, and it was based on a 50/50 split between the spouses. However, one spouse later loses his or her job and is only able to find work that provides a much lower salary. In this altered scenario, the original agreement may no longer be fair. A divorce lawyer can help design a settlement agreement with future contingencies in mind.

Progressing Through the Divorce Too Quickly

It’s common for spouses who are seeking a divorce to attempt to get through the proceedings as fast as possible. However, trying to rush this process can cause costly errors that lead to serious issues later on. When attempting to get through a divorce without unnecessary hurdles or roadblocks, various sound strategies can expedite the process. These solutions include arriving at a complete settlement agreement with the help of a mediator or an attorney and creating a parenting plan before going to court.

How Our Attorneys Can Help You During Your Divorce

The divorce process can be a difficult one to navigate without an attorney by your side. At Joanne Kleiner & Associates, a divorce lawyer can assist you by taking care of every detail of the proceeding from the initial filing to arguing your case in court if necessary. If you’re trying to come to an agreement with your spouse about how property is divided or what the parenting responsibilities should be, we can help you with these decisions. This should relieve you of some of the stress that invariably occurs during a divorce. If you find that you are having difficulties understanding what the divorce process entails, call our office in Jenkintown today at (215) 886-1266 to obtain the assistance you require.

Jan 15

What to Know About Alimony in 2019 and Beyond

How Alimony Will Change in 2019

When alimony is involved, separating partners spend an average of $17,700 to settle their divorces. This is a sizable amount of money that can help keep one spouse afloat while putting a significant dent in the checkbook of the other. However, it’s important to know that there are many tax-related factors to consider beyond alimony payments when creating a divorce settlement.

How Does the Tax Change Impact Alimony Payments?

Starting on the first day of 2019, recipients won’t be able to declare alimony payments as income on a tax return. While this means that you don’t have to pay tax on the money, you also don’t get to use it to contribute to an IRA. Furthermore, it can’t be used as qualifying income for a loan or line of credit. If you’re the person paying alimony, it no longer qualifies as a tax deduction. Therefore, you may be less inclined to make as large of a payment because there is no benefit in lowering your overall tax burden.

There Is No Change for Those Who Divorced Before 2019

It’s important to note that if you divorced before the start of 2019, you’ll consider alimony received as taxable income. If you make alimony payments, you’ll still get to take a tax deduction for making them. If you have a prenuptial agreement that was created before 2019, it may be possible to use the old rules when accounting for spousal support. However, be sure to consult an attorney prior to determining how these or other exceptions may apply in your case.

 

How Could Tax Changes Influence Other Parts of Your Settlement?

Your attorney will likely point out that changes to the tax law related to alimony won’t necessarily prevent you from getting a positive settlement. Instead, it means that it will be necessary to craft a new strategy to obtain the financial resources needed. For instance, you could ask for a greater portion of a marital asset such as money inside of a retirement account. You could also ask for a greater share of the proceeds from selling a home or other valuable assets.

Don’t Forget About Tax Credits Available

Even if you receive less in alimony than you would have by finalizing a divorce in 2018, other changes to the tax code could help make up for that loss. For instance, the child tax credit could result in up to $2,000 per qualifying child going to your bank account. Since a credit reduces your tax liability for each dollar the credit is worth, you could obtain a refund if it results in a negative tax balance.

Other credits or deductions may be available for parents who claim head of household status. Head of household is generally available if you contribute more than 50 percent of the cost of running a home that a child occupies more than 50 percent of the year.

Compromise Is Key When Crafting a Divorce Settlement

It is important to know what you need, what you want and what you can live without when it comes to negotiating a divorce settlement. This can work to keep your divorce costs to a minimum. Furthermore, it can keep relationships strong between ex-spouses who may work together or have kids.

Your divorce attorney may be able to help when it comes to creating a list of priorities prior to the start of settlement talks. Recipients should know that alimony is partially based on your ability to pay or your ability to provide for yourself on a single income. Therefore, it is important to structure alimony payments in a manner that both sides can be content with.

If you need assistance negotiating a divorce settlement involving spousal support, get in touch with the Law Office of Joanne Kleiner today. This can be done by calling our Jenkintown, PA, office at (215) 886-1266 or by sending a fax to (215) 886-2670.

Oct 25

Common Questions Concerning Spouse Maintenance

Spousal Maintenance and the Options

On average, there are more than 35,000 divorces and annulments each year in Pennsylvania. That results in thousands of new people annually who may be entitled to some form of spousal support. In this state, there’s no entitlement, and whether a person receives support is solely up to the discretion of the court.

Is Alimony Limited to Women?

No, it is not. Whether a person is or is not entitled to support is not based on gender. While alimony has traditionally been money paid from an ex-husband to an ex-wife, this is an outdated notion. Men can receive support from women, and support applies to same-sex marriages as well. Statistically, men are less likely to receive support, and there may be many reasons for this, including:

• Traditional gender stereotypes
• Women being more willing to contest it
• Judges influenced by unconscious biases

Can a Prenuptial Agreement Affect Postmarital Support?

If a state allows a prenuptial agreement to dictate spousal support or allow the right to such support to be waived, then yes. In these instances, entitlement – or lack of – is dictated by the contract that both parties have agreed to, and judges are unlikely to overrule that without extenuating circumstances.

What Is Rehabilitative Support?

Rehabilitative support is also called durational support, which means that payments are made for a certain period. Often, a judge will determine that one spouse is not required to maintain the other’s lifestyle forever but just long enough for that person to become self-sufficient up to that level. This kind of support is also often awarded to stay-at-home parents, and the duration of such cases is often until the youngest child becomes 18 years old. Just because support has a termination date doesn’t necessarily mean it ends then. The decision can still be reviewed and amended by the courts.

What Is Permanent Support?

Permanent support is when one spouse pays spousal support until he/she or the other spouse passes. Awarding permanent support means that the judge deemed that one spouse is responsible for maintaining the other’s lifestyle forever. This is often reserved for marriages longer than seven years and when a spouse played a considerable role in helping the other achieve his/her success. It’s possible for permanent support to be terminated or suspended, such as when the spouse receiving support marries or even cohabitates with another.

What Is Lump-Sum Support?

Lump-sum support is a fixed amount paid from one spouse to the other, and it usually has no restrictions regarding situation, such as remarriage, cohabitation or self-sufficiency. Such agreements and decisions are often in lieu of a property settlement. Lump-sum support can also be used to ensure that a certain amount of money is paid to a spouse’s estate after his/her passing.

What Is Temporary Support?

Although rehabilitative or durational support is temporary in a sense, it’s not the same thing as temporary spouse maintenance. Such support is common when a couple separates on a trial basis or have separated but not yet finalized the process. Such support can be an agreement made between the spouses and not involving the courts at all. If the agreement is filed in court, a judge will determine if the agreement is fair and may adjust it as he/she sees fit.

Are There Tax Ramifications?

Yes. The U.S. federal government views spouse maintenance as income. The spouse paying that income is therefore generally allowed to use that payment as a deduction. The spouse receiving that income, on the other hand, must pay income taxes as with any other source of income earned.

Get the Legal Assistance You Need Today

If you’re faced with the prospect of paying or receiving spousal maintenance due to a separation or divorce, assistance from an attorney that focuses on Pennsylvania family law can make a big difference. Joanne Kleiner & Associates has handled many such cases, so contact us today online or by calling our office in Jenkintown at (215) 886-1266.

Sep 25

How Collaboration Results in Better Divorces

Collaboration and the Future of Divorce

The International Academy of Collaborative Professionals is a community of legal, financial, mental health and other professionals committed to utilizing a collaborative approach to conflict resolution. The IACP now comprises thousands of attorneys who focus on collaborative law. The organization predicts that collaboration will become the default approach to divorce in the U.S. as it becomes more accessible and gains more visibility.

What Is Collaborative Law?

This type of law essentially is a more structured approach to mediation. Each party has his or her own representation, and those representatives work with the parties to assemble a support team. That team assists the parties in moving toward the desired resolution in a manner that serves everyone well. In the domain of divorce, it is a means through which a married couple can separate legally without the involvement of the court in a way that has the children’s and each other’s best interests in mind. The support team for a collaborative divorce will include legal representation, but it can also include:

  • Tax experts
  • Social workers
  • Child specialists
  • Financial advisors
  • Real estate evaluators
  • Mental health professionals

Benefits of the Collaborative Approach

Collaborative divorces are suitable for opposite- and same-sex couples, and they can be particularly desirable in the latter due to the additional challenges often present in same-sex divorces. This process involves a team working together to achieve the best possible resolution for everyone involved. That may sound like it requires a lot of money, but the reality is that litigation is quite expensive and often costs much more than collaboration no matter how diverse the support team. The collaborative process does require that everyone be present, involved and committed to working together. When those conditions are met, there are many ways that this process can be beneficial. Some of the additional advantages of collaborative divorces include:

  • The ability to preserve relationships
  • Cheaper costs and less time
  • Lack of court-imposed deadlines
  • Resolutions remain private
  • An emphasis on areas of mutual benefit
  • Agreements made in a forward-focused manner

Collaboration Versus Mediation

Both collaboration and mediation provide a non-adversarial vehicle for divorce. Collaboration is often viewed as a more structured form of mediation. Mediation, therefore, can be viewed as providing more flexibility. After all, it only requires three parties: an attorney and the divorcing couple. That structure, however, provides many benefits, such as having a mental health professional ensure that the couple and the children are going through this process in a manner that is healthy for them now and also over the long term. Perhaps another way to appreciate the difference is that mediation focuses on the efforts of the mediator while collaboration focuses on the efforts of the couple.

Collaboration Is Not Necessarily Easier

When it comes to divorce, teamwork generally produces more productive results. IACP statistics show that most collaborations conclude in under nine months while cases involving mediation and/or litigation take much longer on average. That does not mean that collaboration is easy. A collaborative divorce can require a lot of hard work. Nevertheless, that hard work is channeled in a positive way toward establishing the basis for everyone involved to have healthy relationships post-divorce.

The Future of Collaboration

Collaboration has achieved so much success in domestic relations in recent years that there has been a movement to apply these concepts in other domains. The U.S. government has started to train federal employees in this field, and other legal areas where this is being explored as an alternative dispute resolution tactic include probate and real estate.

Explore a Collaborative Approach Today

If you and your partner have decided to separate or divorce, then collaborative law can give you control and provide the tools and resources to move forward in a happy and healthy manner. At Joanne Kleiner & Associates, we focus on Pennsylvania family and divorce law and have helped many couples achieve a mutually beneficial resolution. Contact us online, or call our office in Jenkintown at (215) 886-1266 today to set up a consultation.

Sep 11

Protecting Your Child From the Trauma of Divorce

Shielding Your Children From the Impact of Divorce in Pennsylvania

Approximately 10 percent of all marriages in Pennsylvania end in divorce, and if yours is among them, one of the hardest aspects will probably be telling your children. In order to minimize the emotional trauma your son or daughter is likely to feel when you make this announcement, it’s important to deal with the legal issues surrounding your marital dissolution as amicably as possible under the circumstances. An experienced Jenkintown divorce lawyer can help you negotiate the custody agreement, visitation schedule and child support obligations that are right for you and your family.

Issues That Should Be Addressed

Very few couples arrive at the decision to divorce without a great deal of deliberation. Here are the four main legal issues that need to be resolved as you move forward with a marital dissolution:

  • Type of divorce
  • Child custody
  • Visitation
  • Child support

The unique structure of Pennsylvania’s divorce statutes will have a large impact on how you and the other parent negotiate these issues.

Types of Divorce in Pennsylvania

A Pennsylvania court will only grant a divorce if one of the spouses has resided in the state for at least six months. The court recognizes three categories:

 

  • Divorce by mutual consent
  • Divorce following a two-year legal separation
  • Divorce on grounds of adultery, bigamy, physical or mental cruelty, abandonment without cause for one year or longer or imprisonment for two years or more

A no-fault divorce that takes place through mutual consent will require approximately four months to process in Pennsylvania. Couples who choose this route generally maintain more control over other parts of the divorce settlement. This option is typically better for children because it minimizes the adversarial components of the marital dissolution.

To pursue a no-fault divorce by mutual consent, both you and your spouse must agree that your marriage is irretrievably damaged so that neither of you contests the action. Courts will impose a mandatory waiting period of 90 days between the time the pertinent paperwork is filed and the time that the divorce decree is signed.

Parenting Plans

If you and your former partner can agree on a plan that covers the terms of custody and how parental decisions are to be made, the family court system will generally abide by the choices the two of you have arrived at together.

Your parenting plan should be as complete as possible, and it should consider the best interests of the children over the individual interests of either parent. The most important decision you and the other parent will make is the one regarding custody. Legal custody and physical custody are usually considered separately in Pennsylvania courts. If the court feels that two parents are able to cooperate even minimally in making decisions concerning their child’s education, religion and medical care, then shared legal custody is often granted. Otherwise, one of the parents will be granted sole legal custody.

Physical custody is defined according to the stipulations in Pennsylvania Statute Title 23 Pa.C.S.A Section 5328(a). This statute defines four types of physical custody, and it also addresses the visitation rights of noncustodial parents:

  • Sole physical custody: The child lives with one parent alone, although the other parent will probably have visitation rights since Pennsylvania recognizes the importance that contact with both parents has on a child’s emotional development and well-being.
  • Primary physical custody: The child spends most of his or her time with one parent. The other parent will have visitation rights in most cases.
  • Partial physical custody: The child spends more time with one parent than the other.
  • Shared or joint physical custody: The child spends frequent amounts of time with both parents. Pennsylvania family courts often use this designation even if the child spends slightly more time with one parent.

A Jenkintown divorce lawyer can explain the effect that Pennsylvania’s divorce laws may have on your family’s unique set of circumstances and assist you in drawing up a parenting plan. Call (215) 886-1266 today to contact the law office of Joanne Kleiner in Jenkintown so that you can set up a consultation.