Pasadena Divorce Attorney : Surviving Your First Divorce
Despite the prevalence of divorce in our society, it’s still a shock for most people when they find themselves facing the reality of a divorce. You may have seen divorce proceedings depicted in TV or film, or heard about celebrity divorces in the news, or heard secondhand from friends and family members, but most of those accounts can leave out the complicated details of how the process works, and actually going through a divorce can be far more stressful and anxiety-ridden than hearing about someone else’s. The good news is that, for many people, surviving a first divorce is the pathway to a much happier future, but there are important steps to take in the meantime to avoid unnecessary pitfalls and costly mistakes.
Be Cautious of Amicable, Informal Agreements
Many couples divorcing, especially younger couples, want to “avoid bringing in lawyers” for fear of the cost or simply to avoid conflict, so they try to hammer out their own division of property and even payment of support without the benefit of a legal advisor. Unfortunately, in many cases these well-intentioned efforts result in even more cost and conflict to the parties, and one of the divorcing spouses may be in for the very rude awakening that their informal agreement is not enforceable in court.
Parties are free to devise their own terms of agreement regarding a divorce, but they will only become effective once a judge signs off on them, and the judge will only do so if the agreement comports with California divorce law. And in the time between when well-meaning spouses enter into an informal agreement and the time when a judge may or may not finalize the agreement, one of the parties may decide not to go through with the agreement for any number of emotional or financial reasons, and the other party can find himself or herself having paid thousands of dollars on an unenforceable agreement and in need of legal help that would have been much more effective had an attorney been consulted at the outset.
Keep in Mind the Date of Separation
The date of separation is the day that either one of the parties to the marriage decided to end the marriage, which may or may not be the day the parties physically separate. Thus, if a man decides to end the marriage on a Monday and moves out on Saturday, the date of separation will be Monday. This is important because California divorce law looks to the date of separation as a crucial date for determining the division of property. Thus, any property or income acquired before the date of separation will be considered as belonging to the marital community as a whole and therefore subject to equitable division between the parties, while property or income earned or acquired after that date may be the separate property of each spouse. A divorce attorney can work with you on the specifics of the divisions of property and income, but the important thing for you to do is to make sure there is some kind of evidence of the correct date of separation.
Keep Track of Your Marital Property
In a California divorce proceeding, the court will attempt to divide the “marital property” between the parties on an equal basis. Marital property is that income or property acquired during the marriage by either property. Thus, even if one party earned all the income during the marriage and kept savings from that income in an individual banking account, it still belongs to the marital community and is subject to equal division in a divorce proceeding. Don’t let the other spouse take off with property or income acquired during the marriage, even if purchased with income from his or her own wages. An experienced divorce attorney will work with you to prevent the other spouse from taking such action.
Work With a Trusted Legal Advisor
The most important way to protect your interests in moving forward through your divorce may be to hire an experienced, compassionate, diligent, and highly focused team of legal professionals. It may feel unusual to reach out to a divorce attorney you haven’t met before to represent you in a proceeding adverse to the person you thought you were going to share your life with, but you have to keep in mind that you are now working towards a life independent of your soon-to-be-former spouse and that you need to primarily be concerned with making sure your interests are represented in the proceeding, and an experienced divorce attorney will work on your behalf to make sure that happens. Contact Pasadena divorce attorney Richard Jacinto today to consult with an accomplished, skillful family law attorney regarding your divorce proceedings.
