Law Office of Joanne Kleiner

Family Law

May 10

Pennsylvania postnuptial agreements

Should You Get a Pennsylvania Postnuptial Agreement?

Only about 15% of newlyweds sign prenuptial agreements, and postnuptial agreements are even more overlooked. Though this type of marital contract isn’t common, it’s still very useful. To see whether or not a postnuptial agreement is right for you, it’s helpful to learn a little more about how they work in Pennsylvania.

What Is a Postnuptial Agreement?

A postnuptial agreement is any type of marital contract that two spouses sign after they have wed. Often called “a postnup” for short, these contracts let you determine how marriage or divorce will affect your financial assets. Depending on the type of postnuptial agreement you sign, it might discuss the following topics:

  • What property is marital property and what is separate property
  • How much maintenance or allowance each spouse gets from joint marital bank accounts
  • Who gets certain items in the event of a death or divorce
  • Which party pays for extra expenses like children’s college

Unlike a prenuptial agreement, you can sign a postnuptial agreement at any time. Many people draft them after major life changes like quitting a job, starting a business, or having a child. If desired, you can also create one simply because you forgot to do a prenup and would like to define your finances a little more clearly.

Benefits of Postnuptial Agreements

The main benefit of a postnuptial agreement is that it clears up any potential disagreements that could arise in the event of a divorce. With a postnup in place, people are less likely to bicker about asset division once strong emotions are involved. It can reduce your need for divorce lawyers and ensure that you spend less time in divorce court.

Some couples start discussing postnuptial agreements because they’re considering splitting up, but sometimes, it is simply a safety measure. For example, if a person starts a business, their business partner might ask them to sign a postnup to ensure that their spouse won’t get involved in the business if a divorce happens.

Another advantage of getting a postnup in Pennsylvania is its flexibility. When you create a prenup, you still have a lot of major life events ahead of you. However, since a postnuptial agreement doesn’t have to be signed before a wedding, it can more easily accommodate big changes. For example, if a couple unexpectedly inherits a number of family heirlooms years into the marriage, a postnup can ensure the heirlooms remain with the right side of the family. You can easily change and adjust postnuptial agreements to account for things like new children or a big real estate purchase.

How to Create a Valid Postnup in Pennsylvania

Postnuptial agreements in Pennsylvania are a little different than postnups or prenups in other parts of the country. Instead of seeing them as their own separate type of contract with unique rules, Pennsylvania mostly just treats postnups like a straightforward contract. Even things like an unfair division of assets are allowed in Pennsylvania postnups. As long as it is written out, signed by both spouses, and notarized, it’s a valid marital contract.

The main thing to keep in mind is just that the contract cannot be signed under fraudulent circumstances or duress. Furthermore, it cannot determine things like child support and custody, which will be left up to the state in the event of a divorce. The final thing to know is that postnups cannot include unenforceable clauses about a person’s right to bodily autonomy and personal freedom, so you can’t use it to determine things like what religion you follow or who does the dishes each night.

If you’re considering a postnuptial agreement, turn to the Law Office of Joanne Kleiner. In addition to postnups and prenups, we also provide assistance with other family law matters like child custody, spousal support, and divorce mediation. To learn more about our services or hire a Jenkintown divorce lawyer, call 215-886-1266 or fill out our contact form.

Jul 09

Choosing Arbitration as an Alternative Conflict Resolution for Divorce

Arbitration Is a Cost-effective, Time-saving Divorce Resolution Method

Settling a divorce in a courtroom can take time and money, and not all couples want to take that route. Arbitration provides an alternative option to avoid going to court while still retaining some of the certainties that a trial can provide.

How Does Arbitration Work?

Arbitration is an alternative way to resolve divorce conflicts. For the process of arbitration, the spouses each work with a divorce lawyer, and they also hire a third-party arbitrator to make the final decisions regarding the case. Each party presents their arguments, evidence and witnesses, and then the arbitrator, who is often a lawyer or retired judge, makes the final decision. While similar to a trial in court, it differs from it since the parties need to agree on whether the arbitrator will rule on all or just some of the divorce issues, on the scheduling for the case and on the degree of formality of the case.

Benefits of Arbitration

Arbitration provides wide range of benefits that make it attractive to many couples. Some of these benefits include:

  • Faster divorce resolution
  • Less expensive
  • Privacy and discretion
  • Informality of the process
  • Collaboration between the spouses
  • Certainty of a binding judgement

The Cost of a Trial Versus Arbitration

A divorce can cost thousands of dollars. When couples end up going to court to battle to settle their divorce issues, the cost can increase and even become prohibitive. Arbitration can help couples save money since the process itself takes less time from start to finish. Since couples do not need to wait to schedule a court date based on the judge’s calendar and each divorce lawyer needs less time to prepare for the case, arbitration becomes a more cost-effective option. Preparation for arbitration is somewhat less formal than for a court case, so the lawyers, who are often paid hourly, can spend less time preparing to present their client’s case.

Privacy and Discretion Are Important

The court records of divorces resolved by arbitration are public. However, the actual process is completed in private, which means that you can retain general privacy and discretion about your life, unlike a trial, which is open to the public. When you are negotiating how to divide your assets or how much financial support should be paid, discretion is important. Privacy can also be very valuable when the divorcing couple are parents, who want their issues and their children’s information to remain private.

Arbitration Can Be Helpful When There Are Children Involved in the Divorce

During divorce arbitration, parents can also resolve issues related to child custody and support. If both parties can come to an agreement focusing on the best interests of their children, the resolution of the arbitrator will be accepted by the court. However, if the court decides that the children’s best interests were not served by the judgment, then the court reserves the right to revert the arbitration for those issues.

However, when parents use arbitration to resolve their divorce issues, they also need to agree to the arbitration, hire the arbitrator and accept the rules for their arbitration. This can also benefit their children, who can witness their parents collaborating even as they are negotiating the dissolution of their marriage. Collaboration between the parents tells children that their parents are still willing to work together to resolve issues, something that will come in handy as they move forward with parenting after divorce. It also spares them the emotional trauma of a court battle.

Not all divorce cases need to end up in a contentious trial. Choosing an alternative method of conflict resolution such as arbitration can save you time, money and stress. You can learn more by contacting us at the Law Office of Joanne Kleiner at 215-886-1266 or via our website. Our offices are located in Jenkintown, and we will reach out to schedule a consultation.

Jan 10, 2018

Nesting Divorce Plans: What You Need to Know

Nesting Plan | Divorce Lawyer

Now more than ever couples considering divorce want options. There are many different variations of how people choose to get divorced and how they structure their life after the fact.

What is Nesting?

One recent development that more families are considering is called a nesting plan and it could help you and your former spouse chart out an appropriate way to parent. However, nesting plans are not right for everyone. Read on to learn more about how these plans work and how you can identify whether or not it’s the right fit for you.

For the vast majority of people going through a divorce, keeping the children in the family home is the main priority and this is for a good reason. The marital residence might be the only home ever known by the children and with so much change on the rise, stability may be the only thing you and your former spouse can agree on.

As parents go through a divorce, they may feel that the children should be kept in the home because it will help with stability and comfort during a time of major transition.

A nesting plan means that both parents take a turn living in the primary home while the children stay there all the time. There are a number of different issues you need to consider before deciding if this is the right choice for you, and the help of your family lawyer cannot be understated.

How Do I Know Whether Nesting is the Right Fit for Us?

Your Montgomery County Pennsylvania family attorney may be able to recommend whether or not nesting makes sense in your case. A nesting plan refers to co-parenting in which both children keep the marital family home. The parents then might also rent additional space for the two of them to share or their own one-bedroom apartment after their divorce and it’s not their parenting time.

The parent will live in the marital home and the other parent lives in the rented space until the parenting time switches; however, this might initially seem simple but if you and the spouse are rotating in and out of your previous marital home, you will still need a parenting plan. A bird nesting plan is not a substitute for a time-sharing agreement or a parenting plan.

Pros and Cons of Nesting Plans

There are benefits and disadvantages to the nesting plan. It could reduce your potential post-marital housing costs to have a small apartment while keeping the family home that you may already own. This is usually the biggest expense that each person will incur after a divorce.

There are also costs of having a second location, however. Emotionally, your primary concern is probably about the well-being of your children, however, it can be challenging for children to adjust to these this new situation.

Furthermore, you might find it difficult to go back and forth especially if you and the other spouse are not able to get along well or if you have disagreements about appropriate parenting style. Many different issues can emerge in the bird nesting agreement and if you do not have a system in place with the other spouse to discuss how these issues will be addressed, you could put yourself at risk for constant arguments and problems with the other spouse. Bird nesting maybe something to consider in the short-term but you need to see how it might work for your family. If you’re unable to come to terms of agreement with your former spouse on anything else, it is unlikely that a bird nesting plan would be most appropriate for you.

CONTACT US

At the Law Office of Joanne E. Kleiner, we have more than 25 years of family law experience. We’ll help you stay focused on what matters. To schedule an appointment with an experienced Pennsylvania divorce attorney, contact our office online or call us at 215-886-1266.

Aug 17

Study Shows Impact of Silent Divorce

Study Shows Impact of Silent DivorceMental health professionals have long expressed concerns about the lifelong impact of contested divorce on children. Now there’s some scientific evidence to suggest that the unwillingness of parents of divorce to work cooperatively can have long-term physiological consequences as well.

A study conducted at Carnegie Mellon University has found a greater incidence of health vulnerabilities in adults whose parents separated or divorced and did not maintain communications during their childhoods. Researchers found children of uncommunicative parents to be three times as likely to catch a cold when intentionally exposed to a common cold virus.

In the study, more than 200 healthy adults were quarantined and exposed to a common cold virus. Researchers monitored them for five days to determine whether they developed any signs of respiratory illness. Test subjects whose parents lived separately and did not have any communication showed a heightened inflammation in response to the virus and were three times as likely to show symptoms of a cold. Researchers also found that children of divorce whose parents stayed in communication showed no meaningful change in susceptibility to health problems.

Researchers were looking to see if there were long-term health consequences for children of divorce. Sheldon Cohen, a professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon, said that the results of the study suggest that there are long effects of early exposure to family conflict. Michael Murphy, a postdoctoral research associate involved in the study, noted that the results support the assertion that early life stressful experiences can have a physiological consequence that can stay with us for decades.

Contact the Law Office of Joanne E. Kleiner & Associates

For an appointment, contact our office online or call us at 215-886-1266. Let us use our experience, skill, knowledge and resources to help you make informed and effective decisions.

Aug 08

Spousal Support in Pennsylvania

Spousal Support in PennsylvaniaSpousal support, or alimony, though not as common as it used to be, is still available to a spouse in a divorce proceeding in Pennsylvania. The objective, with a grant of alimony, is to provide a person with the financial resources to meet their day-to-day expenses while they take the steps necessary to become self-sufficient. The court may, in certain circumstances, determine that the recipient, either because of age or health considerations, will never be able to take care of his or her own needs. In those limited circumstances, the court may award permanent spousal support. In all other situations, alimony is generally granted only when it is determined to be necessary. It may be awarded for a specific period of time or until it can be demonstrated that the recipient is self-sufficient.

In Pennsylvania, an award of alimony is entirely at the discretion of the court. When determining whether spousal support is warranted and, if so, how much should be paid and for how long, the court can take a number of factors into consideration, including:

  • The age and health of both parties
  • The respective income of each party
  • The earning potential of both parties
  • The length of the marriage
  • The standard of living to which the parties were accustomed
  • The contributions of a spouse as homemaker
  • The extent to which one party contributed to the earning power of the other
  • The educational background of both parties and the time needed to prepare the recipient to be self-sufficient
  • The extent to which either of the parties engaged in adultery or other marital misconduct

Contact Us

At the office of Joanne E. Kleiner & Associates, we have more than 25 years of family law experience. We’ll help you stay focused on what matters. To schedule an appointment with an experienced Pennsylvania divorce attorney, contact our office online or call us at 215-886-1266.