Family Law In Eastvale
How California Family Law Differs from Other States
California has been the leader on many fronts, for better and for worse. For example, California pioneered the no-fault divorce concept, so that couples didn’t have to trash each other’s reputations to secure a divorce. Let’s look at how California family law differs from other states.
LGBT Friendliness
Same sex couples in California were legally allowed to marry in 2008. (California created domestic partnerships in 1999.) However, the legal code has been continually changing to reflect that fact. For example, California’s family law code has been amended over the past few years to remove the words husband and wife. It now typically refers to partners and parents, especially with regard to establishing paternity and parental rights. This removes the bias for both married couples and heterosexual couples.
Assisted Reproduction & the Law
California’s AB 960 was passed to give intended parents of children born through assisted reproduction the same legal protections as those conceived naturally. California is a pioneer in regard to surrogacy agreements and giving intended parents legal priority over the gestational carrier. For example, the law says California courts have jurisdiction over any child conceived via an ART procedure in California, born in California or has a parent who is a legal resident of the state. Anyone entering a surrogacy agreement in California is subject to the laws of California, as well. This means that foreigners hiring a California resident as a surrogate establish parentage in the California county tied to the case. This could be the county where the child was born, where the surrogate lives, or where the ART procedure was held. California respects the option to keep donors anonymous in surrogacy agreements.
These laws are simply a continuation of California’s 1994 ruling that says intended parents should be the baby’s legal parents.
Domestic Violence
California has been taking steps to protect abused spouses from their abusers. It expanded the definition from mere physical abuse to include emotional abuse years earlier than other states. However, the state has also expanded the scope of evidence that can be used to enact these protections and increased what domestic violence victims receive. For example, the courts can grant 100 percent of the community interest in the supposed abuser’s pension to the injured spouse. This is on top of laws that allow someone who claims to be abused to use these allegations to:
- Evict the “abuser” from the house
- Deny them unsupervised visitation
- Force the “abuser” to pay for counseling
- Stop evictions and foreclosures
- Get full custody of the children, including ending joint custody agreements
- Get a restraining order to prevent the “abuser” from contacting them
- Move without telling the partner where they live
All of these laws and regulations have good intentions. However, the sheer breadth of the benefits received result in a terrifying large number of false allegations simply to receive these benefits. For example, someone claiming domestic abuse gets to keep the kids, the house and a higher spousal support benefit simply by claiming such. And the family code changes enacted in 2018 through 2020 allow the evidence submitted in earlier hearings and accepted under a “preponderance of evidence” standard to be used against the accused. This is a far weaker standard than “beyond a reasonable doubt”. This makes it essential for accused partners to fight allegations of spousal and child abuse as soon as they are made.
Pet Custody
Pets used to be treated like any other property, something to be allocated along with the rest of the property to be divided during a divorce. California became the third state in the country to allow for shared custody of pets. A “best interest” standard similar to that used in child custody cases is used.
Furthermore, laws that went into effect in 2019 require someone to care for an animal until final determination of ownership can be made. This prevents someone from selling or euthanizing the pet while final decisions are being made.
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An Overview Of California Divorce Law
We’re here to provide an overview of California divorce law. Note that this is a high-level discussion of California divorce law, and you should consult with a Corona, California divorce attorney to learn how the law relates to your specific case.
Eligibility for Divorce in California
In order to be allowed to file for divorce in California, at least one of the two parties involved must have lived in California for at least six months before filing. This means that you can file for divorce in California if you’ve lived there more than half a year even if you married in another state. To file for divorce in a given county, at least one party must have lived in that county for at least three months.
Community Property
California like many other states that were once part of Mexico is a community property state. This means that assets you owned as an individual before the marriage remain yours, assuming you haven’t contributed to it during your marriage. (Think 401Ks, IRAs or the equity in the home when both are helping pay down the mortgage.) Any debts or assets acquired during the marriage are jointly held. Not all property acquired during a marriage is considered joint property. For example, property given to you as a gift or an inheritance may not be considered community property.
Grounds for Divorce
California considers all divorces no-fault. The state was actually the first to introduce the concept of no-fault divorce in 1970. No fault means you don’t have to prove or even allege adultery or cruelty to get a divorce.
The Divorce Process
California may let you divorce for any reason, but you’re required to wait at least six months for the divorce to be finalized. The divorce process is started when one of the spouse’s files for divorce in the county where they live. The person who files the divorce petition is called the petitioner. The petitioner is required to serve the other spouse the divorce papers. That person is called the respondent. The goal here is to ensure that the other partner is informed and has the ability to fight and/or reconcile. If you file for divorce while your partner is working or serving in the military overseas, this is one of the few cases where the divorce can be revoked.
The next step is the negotiation for the division of property and debt. This can be done through mediators or a divorce trial. Mediators are generally much cheaper, though you can have an attorney with you while you mediate the divorce.
The summary dissolution is a simplest divorce process. It is only available to those who don’t have children and have been married less than five years. It isn’t an option if there are significant assets like a house or other significant community property. If there are assets to be sold or transferred, you’ll need to work things out with at least an arbiter. When children are involved, child support, visitation and tax deductions need to be worked out. You can offer or accept alimony as an ongoing payment or as a lump sum.
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Factors That Don’t Affect Child Custody In California
A lot of factors affect child custody in California. However, the law has said that a number of factors cannot be used to determine child custody, barring situations where it clearly impacts the best interest of the child.
Disability
California does not allow the courts to discriminate against a disabled parent, unless the disability interferes with their ability to care for themselves or the child. For example, a parent’s anxiety or depression shouldn’t be a factor unless the parent is unable to function in daily life or may be hospitalized for mental illness, while minor physical disabilities shouldn’t matter at all. However, a history of drug or alcohol abuse will be used against the affected parent. Talk to Corona, California family law attorney to understand how your personal health history may be used against you and how to mitigate that risk.
Marital Status
The court isn’t supposed to give extra weight to the parent who fights the divorce or penalize the parent who filed for divorce.
Sexual Orientation
California does not allow for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. A spouse who comes out as homosexual will not be penalized in child custody decisions for doing so. The law also seeks to treat homosexual couples the same as heterosexual couples. For example, a lesbian who gives birth to a child can list her partner as the second parent. They are then to be treated like the biological father during a divorce, having equal rights to visitation and decision making as a man who donated sperm so his wife could have a child.
Finances
The courts will look at the ability of the parent to provide for the child’s physical and emotional needs. However, their income at the time matters less than you think it does. For example, you can file for child support and spousal support to make up for your lack of income as a stay at home parent. Furthermore, you can take steps to improve your fitness as a parent by creating a stable living situation. Whether you want to fight to remain in the familiar family home or move in with parents so that there is a supportive household to watch over the child and reduce child care costs is your decision.
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A Few of the Quirks in California Child Support Law
California likes to take the lead in many areas, and family law is no exception to that trend. Let’s take a look at some of the quirks in California’s child support rules. Note that this does not eliminate the need to consult with a California family law attorney with regard to your own particular case.
Gender Neutral Means It Truly Goes Both Ways
California pioneered no-fault divorce. It was also one of the pioneers in gender-neutral child custody. While a stay-at-home mother will still get preferential custody of young children, that’s because she spends the most time with the children, not because she’s the mother. This is why a stay-at-home father could seek additional child support so he could continue to stay home with the kids, too.
California courts tend to favor joint custody agreements where each parent spends an equal amount of time with the child, too. Many parents seek this arrangement, because it eliminates child support requirements if the parents have equal incomes. If one parent loses their job but has a stable place to stay such as moving in with their parents, they could request that the child stay with them and receive child support from the other parent. Note that the courts will not send a child to live with someone in a homeless shelter or dangerous location. And the courts prefer custody agreements that minimize disruption to the child’s life.
There Is No Limit
California is unusual in that it doesn’t cap child support payments. This means that there is no upper limit to child support payments, though the amount your ex-spouse could request is limited by your income. This is why news stories of million dollar a month child support orders for celebrities in California are even possible.
It May Be Rolled into Family Support
Family support is a term for a combination of child support and alimony. It allows you to pay just one payment for both bills. On the other hand, the courts don’t make a distinction between alimony and child support when it is combined in family support. This means that you can run into legal trouble if you can’t pay the total amount. For example, the penalties for not paying child support will hit you if you only pay the half you think goes to the child if a family support order is in effect. The courts will not issue a separate order for child and spousal support if they grant a family support order. This means that you must go to court to have “family support” orders reduced if you can’t afford to pay it or find that the other spouse no longer requires alimony.
California family support orders can be agreed upon in mediation or set by the courts. However, privately mediated agreements can only agree to an amount equal or higher than what state law mandates. Your ex-spouse can’t agree to take less. However, you can work with a family law attorney to ensure that health insurance coverage and other contributions to the child’s well-being are taken into account when setting child support or family support amounts.
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Mediation and Child Custody
Many states in America, including California, are known for heated child custody battles. The stakes in such cases are unusually high for obvious reasons. The outcome of a mediation process involving child custody can be the difference between gaining or being denied access to your own children.
While it’s unfortunate that most parents use custody as leverage to “punish” each other, reaching an agreement is possible. Unlike typical discussions done directly, mediation includes a mediator (a neutral third party) whose #1 role is bringing bother parties to a consensus.
While mediators face an uphill task, their unbiased outside influence can bring surprisingly positive results. Mediators can highlight unreasonable demands by either party. Unlike you, they don’t have any stake in the mediation outcome. This gives them the power to get unreasonable parties to pursue a common ground that wouldn’t have been possible if they were negotiating alone.
Effectiveness Of Mediation During Child Custody Disputes
Mediation allows divorcing parties to come up with a custody agreement in a cost-effective manner. A full-blown custody lawsuit is costly in California. While mediation may also involve some fees, such fees are usually split between both parties and are usually a insignificant when compared to attorney fees in a full-blown child custody battle. Even if you choose to hire a mediation lawyer (which is optional), the cost of the process is far lower than that of a full-blown lawsuit. Mediation processes don’t need numerous hearings, administrative costs, and court reporters that attract additional costs.
Mediation improves communication between parents. Mediators are able to open lines of communication between parents who weren’t seeing each other eye-to-eye. By focusing on the best interests of children, mediators align the thinking of both parents, putting them in a position to begin communication. This process usually leads to improved communication long after mediation, improving the odds of both parents pursuing peaceful dispute resolution when their children are involved.
Mediation also allows parents to choose their own fate. Instead of being bound by court rulings that may not be favorable but have lasting consequences, parties can have the opportunity to choose different paths that courts rarely take but can lead to better child custody outcomes. Most importantly, unlike court proceedings and outcomes, mediation reduces uncertainty giving both parties an opportunity to decide how to raise their children instead of waiting for courts to decide.
Mediation is faster. The process is way faster than litigation. While a typical child custody battle in a California court can take months or years, mediation can last minutes, hours, or days. Court approvals are also fast. Typical court custody battles have numerous variables that increase the time it takes to get a decision. These factors range from your location (some California counties are busier) to the judge handling your case. Some judges take more time than others deliberately. Besides the cost savings and collaborative aspects of mediation, the process is incredibly fast and effective.
However, it’s advisable to hire a mediation lawyer. The fastest decisions may not always be the best. You need an attorney to advise you accordingly.
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Father’s Rights in California: Will Outspending the Mother in a Custody battle Help?
In California, fathers enjoy the same rights as mothers. As a result, there’s no need for aggressiveness or failure to pursue equal rights or protect existing rights. A common mistake made by fathers in child custody battles is attempting to outspend the mother. Understanding this mistake is the “key” to avoiding it or fixing custody battle issues.
While getting the best fathers’ rights attorney in California will go a long way, overspending in custody battles is not the answer. This advice is common among some bad legal actors. Outspending the mother in divorce litigation to defeat her financially isn’t prudent and usually benefits bad legal actors more than offer the best solution for all.
California Family Code Guidelines On Divorce & Family Law Cases
California’s Family Code has guidelines on how custody, property, and support cases should be handled. Hostile litigation usually results in outcomes which aren’t consistent with fathers’ rights.
Sanctions
For instance, fathers can get exposed to monetary sanctions for acting unreasonably or compromising public policy. Section 271 can be used to punish fathers who drive up litigation costs or act in other ways that aren’t consistent with public policy when trying to resolve disputes. The court can impose sanctions if the conduct of a father or their attorney frustrates public policy to settle disputes. Section 271 encourages meaningful discussions between divorcing spouses and aims to accelerate related issues like custody and settlement.
It is also possible for the mother to pursue legal action through other attorney fee statutes i.e., California Family Code 2030-2032 to make the father pay for legal fees.
Loss of credibility
An overzealous litigation process can also expose a father to credibility issues. Your credibility during a divorce or custody battle can be questioned if you act in a certain manner. In fact, unreasonable positions reduce a person’s credibility in the “eyes” of the court. If you don’t stop being unreasonable, the court can sanction you. A discretionary decision can also be made against you based on your unreasonable actions. While using underhand tactics may be tempting, i.e., driving up litigation costs to disadvantage the mother will do more harm than good to a father’s rights.
Fathers’ Rights Lawyer In California
Experienced father’s rights lawyers are the best placed individuals to guide fathers through custody battles. Seasoned lawyers understand how and when family courts use their discretion against fathers. While divorce and custody battles tend to be bitter, the best fathers’ rights attorneys understand the importance of maintaining credibility and action reasonably.
Since court decisions may be affected by many things, including discretionary matters that you may not be aware off, you need legal help to take calculated steps all the way. Overspending may backfire on you if the court directs you to pay for your former spouse’s legal fees. Such decisions can have serious implications on your finances and the overall outcome of the case, given you will have already lost some credibility. Seek legal help before taking drastic actions in custody battles.
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When Can I Get Alimony Levels Modified?
Alimony may be temporary. This is standard when you’re in the six-month (or longer) separation before the divorce decree is issued. Alimony can also be granted for up to three years after the divorce is finalized barring rare circumstances. For example, California doesn’t grant lifetime alimony unless the recipient is disabled and/or unable to work. The latter case means alimony may be granted for the last few years of a retiree’s life. Popular culture suggests that alimony is set once and done. In reality, alimony can be changed at any time if you can show there has been a “change of circumstances”. But when can you get an alimony modification?
Income Levels Have Changed
You can file for a modification in your alimony level when your income has fallen. This could be due to a temporary job loss, loss of overtime, or having to take a lower paying job. As long as you didn’t quit your job to avoid alimony or quit your job to ask for additional alimony, the courts will generally approve the request.
Always file the modification request as soon as possible, because you can be held in contempt for falling behind through no fault of your own. You will owe the higher level of support as it accrues even after it is changed. The same is true for child support.
Expenses Have Changed
You can ask for a modification in the alimony order if your expenses or that of your ex-spouse has changed. Have they moved to a lower cost area? Has your ex started a job with health insurance, so you no longer need to provide it? Have they sold the house and moved into an apartment, reducing how much money they need to live? If household living expenses have changed significantly, you could ask for both child support and alimony to be adjusted.
Circumstances Have Changed
You can ask for alimony to be terminated when your ex has finished school and thus likely able to start a full-time professional job. You can ask for alimony to end because they’ve remarried.
You can also ask for alimony to end because they are now receiving a new source of support. For example, you can ask to end alimony because they’ve begun drawing Social Security retirement and pension benefits. You could ask for the alimony order to end because they’ve started making withdrawals from their retirement accounts. Conversely, you may be able to avoid paying alimony if you transfer enough retirement assets to their retirement account to provide adequate income.
However, you cannot ask to end alimony because your children have started school or your children have moved out of the house. Alimony is not child support. And if you end “family support” because your children have moved out, the tax authorities may start investigating because you were able to deduct alimony from your taxes but cannot deduct child support. The better solution is to ask for an adjustment of alimony / family support because the parent can return to work part-time while the kids are in school and reduce child support as childcare costs go down.
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Minimizing Your Alimony Obligations
Alimony is not guaranteed the way child support is. There is generally room for negotiation, and there are ways the alimony owed can be reduced.
Spousal support is intended to make the transition from a combined household to a single income, single person household easier. This is why alimony may be granted during the divorce process; this is called temporary support. Or alimony may be given for a set time-frame while the person returns to the workforce. In California, this is called rehabilitative support. However, it may also be mandated for years. Fortunately, permanent spousal support is rare. This is generally required when spouses are ending a long marriage, and the other partner cannot reenter the workforce due to age or illness. When the other person is hitting retirement age, one possible solution is dividing assets so that they receive a large chunk in their retirement account. This must be done via a QDRO. But giving them these retirement assets will allow them to receive the income from those assets in retirement. And it will generally reduce if not eliminate alimony requirements.
California is unique in allowing a spouse who sacrificed their education or career to help the other spouse to claim reimbursement support. This is a complex matter, and you should consult with a Corona, California divorce attorney to understand how this form of spousal support may apply to you. It may be an option even if you’re not going to receive a higher level of alimony because you’re a stay at home parent.
The concept of reimbursement support is sometimes confused with reimbursements demanded as part of the divorce. The right to reimbursement in these cases is affected by state law and isn’t determined by the family law courts. For example, you may be able to demand reimbursement of separate property contributions to community property assets. You will need good documentation to prove that you should get additional money back, such as when you used money from a personal savings account or inheritance to put down on the purchase of a family home. If you get that money back, you could turn around and use it to pay alimony. You can also request reimbursement if you paid for the other person’s education out of your personal property.
On the flipside, proving that you worked in someone’s business to support it may allow you to demand additional reimbursement, as well. We don’t recommend continuing to employ your ex-spouse in the family business. Selling their stake in the business or trading assets to keep the business intact and generating revenue is an option. Consult with both a family law attorney and tax attorney to understand your options. You may not want to give them 20% of the business profits for the next ten years, but it may satisfy demand for alimony.
If you have sufficient assets, you can pay alimony as a lump sum. This will be lower than the amount you’d pay over the years, because inflation is taken into account when determining the suitable lump sum payment. Know that the divorce or separation agreement should explicitly state that the other person cannot come back and demand alimony or additional funds, in order to prevent them from demanding alimony later.
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How the Coronavirus Crisis Has Affected Visitation
Your rights aren’t suspended during an emergency like a pandemic, but events may make it hard to exercise rights like visitation rights. The coronavirus pandemic has affected visitation on a personal and systemic level. Let’s look at a few of the ways the coronavirus pandemic and the government-mandated shutdowns have affected visitation for non-custodial parents.
Custodial Parents Could Refuse Visitation for Health Reasons
Normally, it wasn’t legal for a parent to refuse to send the child to visit the other parent unless there was a legitimate safety concern. This meant that they could refuse to let the child visit with the other parent if they’re staying in a homeless shelter or living with an abusive boyfriend but not anything less than that. Then the government shelter-in-place orders came. And many custodial parents were able to refuse visitation because they weren’t supposed to leave their homes. Frontline workers sometimes declined to have the children come over because they were concerned about exposing their children. The non-custodial parent not seeing their child for months didn’t make headlines the way doctors sleeping in tents in their garage to protect their spouse and children did, but it was still a sacrifice. News stories didn’t address the court petitions to refuse to send a child to visit Mom or Dad because they worked in a hospital or as a police officer, citing a low risk of infection.
As things open up, we can expect a flood of court petitions because parents who haven’t seen enough of their kids want to make up for lost time. That’s understandable given that extended time apart weakens the parental relationship. There are already legal experts saying they are concerned that the lack of visitation by parents with kids in foster care may undermine their reunification cases. Yet it isn’t their fault it was difficult to exercise their visitation rights.
Video Calls Have Become Common
The government-mandated shutdowns closed visitation centers and neutral public spaces like libraries where children could visit their parents. This made it impossible for parents whose children were in foster care or limited to supervised visits to visit their kids. The poor quality alternative was scheduled video calls.
Why aren’t video conferences an adequate substitution for proper visitation? Young children don’t engage with someone on the screen. They may not realize that the face on the screen is real. After all, the person on the screen can’t hold them or play with them. We’ve learned from the months of online schooling that watching someone talk on a screen is a poor substitute for learning because kids don’t absorb as much information. Children and parents trying to stay in contact with a video conference aren’t experiencing the same depth. Furthermore, remote visits just don’t work for babies, toddlers, and children with developmental delays.
That’s why video conferencing wasn’t considered an adequate replacement for visitation before the coronavirus outbreak. And that isn’t taking into account the possibility that the custodial parent interferes with it by saying sorry, the internet connection is messed up, no video call today. In short, relying on technology instead of in person visitation makes it easier for the other parent to interfere in the other’s visitation rights.
The Court Systems Have Evolved
The courts were mostly closed during the coronavirus pandemic. Serious criminal trials like murder trials and emergency petitions like protective orders still took place. Most civil cases were halted, because they require a jury to be seated. California said that local courts could use video conferencing and telephonic hearings to conduct civil cases. Criminal cases could be handled using remote technology with the defendant’s consent, too.
This meant that some custody disputes, divorce cases and pre-trial hearings were handled via remote technology like video conferences. However, this alters the dynamics of the legal hearings. That’s why the civil statutes of limitations were extended 180 days. And for civil cases filed before April 6, 2020, six months were added to the time limit required to bring an action to trial. This meant that domestic violence cases and divorces going to trial were delayed for months. And it will take months for the courts to handle the backlog.
The solution for most couples is to go to arbitration or mediation to get their visitation dispute resolved, and use video conferencing to get it done.
Informal Child Custody Changes Have Been Common
There are parents who have made changes to their child custody arrangements based on their temporary needs. For example, a parent who was furloughed might take the child in full-time though the other parent had primary custody. That would allow the custodial parent to work overtime, though the other parent may still have to pay child support because the courts can’t keep up with petitions to change child support orders. There are many cases where parents shifted their “three month summer visit” to fit their furlough, so that the parent who was at home could supervise the kids’ online schooling or eliminate the need for childcare. The problem is that the child support orders and custody orders just haven’t kept up. Try to record how child custody and visitation has changed, so that you can finally shift the child custody agreement to the 50-50 schedule you’re now living and adjust the child support level to reflect that.
The Locations Where We Can Meet Are Changing
You can’t meet at a neutral third party location like a visitation center, restaurant playground or public library if it is closed. This has led to far more parent visits taking place at the park and other open spaces.
Long-Distance Visitation Has Become Almost Impossible
It wasn’t uncommon to see older children alone on planes as they traveled cross-country to visit their non-custodial parent. This became impossible when airlines stopped all non-essential travel. Even if someone was willing to drive cross-country to visit their children, the lack of rental cars, open rest stops and the sheer cost made it impossible. We can expect long-distance visitation to be demanded by non-custodial parents again. And we can expect custodial parents who were left impoverished by the economic impact of the government-mandated shutdowns to ask for concessions like video conferences or financial assistance to pay for the child’s travel.
Another alternative is the parent who hasn’t been able to visit to ask for primary custody to make up for lost time. That certainly becomes more feasible if the child has shifted to online school.
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Reasons For Prenup Agreements
Roughly one in ten couples sign a prenuptial agreement or premarital agreement before they get married. While these legal contracts should be used more often, they aren’t as common as they could be because most don’t see the need for it. But who needs a prenuptial agreement? Here is a list of the groups that we think can’t do without a prenup.
You Have Children by a Prior Relationship
Not everyone who has kids before marriage or from a second marriage needs a prenup. However, a premarital agreement is strongly recommended if you want to protect the inheritance rights of your children born prior to your upcoming marriage. A prenup can say that your new spouse will waive their rights to your separate property, so that they don’t have a claim on it if you die. This provision would help to ensure that a family home or business you owned before the marriage goes to your children. Of course, that is only an option if you still own the property when you die and it doesn’t have to be liquidated to pay your creditors.
Consider working with a good attorney to set up a trust, if you have minor children or special needs children. Assets placed in an irrevocable trust for the benefit of the children prior to your re-marriage are no longer yours. And your new spouse would have no claim on them when you die. If you have an estate plan, a prenup and review of your estate plan before you marry is a necessity.
You Have Assets You Don’t Want to Divide in a Divorce
A prenup can be used to protect key assets that you would otherwise lose if you were to divide them per California’s community property rules. For example, a prenup could ask the person to waive their rights to your business or a family farm.
Know that this provision will not stand on its own. The prenup must be fair. If they give up their rights to a stake in your business upon your divorce, you need to make up for it somehow. After all, it isn’t fair if you ask them to give up their potential stake in your small business and grow it into a 50 million dollar firm without anything in return. And such a lopsided division of property will result in the premarital agreement being thrown out. The solution is to have provisions that offset the potential future value of the asset. You could give them an ever larger share of your stock portfolio or other real estate assets as the size of your business grows.
It isn’t uncommon for someone to have a large investment account. When you marry, this can become community property. Even if the assets are yours, the appreciation can become community property. Then the extra 300K in equity on your real estate portfolio or stock becomes community property. If you have to sell it to pay them off, you’re also going to be hit with a massive tax bill. A prenup that excludes these assets from community property makes that unnecessary.
There Is Significant Inequality between the Two before the Marriage
A prenup is advisable if there is a significant difference in income, assets and net worth of the two parties. A prenup can be used to prevent a new partner from getting half of what you own in a divorce. The process of negotiating a prenup can make these expectations clear, and in some cases, it reveals a potential “gold digger”. A prenup can also be used to make the divorce fairer when one side has significant personal property and the other is coming into the marriage with significant debt. In theory, your property and their debt are separate before, during and after marriage. However, it is rare for someone to keep separate property entirely separate for the entire marriage. Once you write a check from that personal savings account to pay the joint credit card bill, you’ve used personal property to pay communally held debt.
A prenup can be used to protect the person who is likely going to be paying off the other’s debts. You could state in the premarital agreement that the person with the assets will be reimbursed if they pay off the others’ premarital debts. If they pay off their partner’s credit cards, student loans, or mortgage, then they are to be reimbursed that amount if the couple divorces. This type of reimbursement is allowed in a prenup, whereas a pay-off to the other person as a cash lump sum is often not.
You can add provisions to the prenup to compensate a partner who works while the other goes to school fulltime. For example, if one partner works full time while the other earns a law degree or finishes an MBA, your prenup could say that the partner who supported them both could be compensated for half or all of the educational costs they paid.
You Are Likely to Inherit Family Money
You can use a prenup to declare an inheritance from your family to be separate property. This will prevent such assets from becoming community property upon your divorce. Note that the prenup must be fair in other respects, because the agreement can be thrown out if you inherit 10 million dollars but the other person is going to get two thirds of your half million-dollar community property.
While a prenup is one potential solution to this dilemma, trusts may be a viable solution, as well. Your spouse will not have any claim on a trust set up by your parents for your benefit of that of your grandchildren. They cannot claim the money paid by the trust to pay medical bills, educational expenses or living expenses of the family.
If you’re considering passing on significant assets to your descendants, you may want to set up a trust to manage the money and protect it from your children’s future spouses. Then you don’t have to worry about whether or not they have a good prenup in place when they divorce. If you actively manage your assets, you may use trusts to manage the assets if you’re incapacitated while passing the assets outside of probate if you die. Just make sure you have backup trustees and alternate beneficiaries.
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The City Of Eastvale
Sometimes town mottos can be a bit too ambitious, but Eastvale is one area that truly lives up to its local motto of ‘community, pride, prosperity’. In fact, it takes each of these three aspects very seriously. There is a sense of neighbourly care and security that comes from neighbors knowing and relying on one another. There is also a sense of real pride in the area, which is reflected in the cleanliness and general upkeep of the area. Finally, this is an area of local prosperity and abundance. It consistently ranks as one of the most prosperous communities in the state of California, with the media local household income being more than $106,000. With these three aspects, it is no wonder that Eastvale is such a desirable place to live.
Eastvale is situated in an ideal location just 8 miles to the south east of the Los Angeles county line. This means that you can drive to the glitz and glamour of L.A within just a few minutes, but you are far enough removed not to be upset by the raucous noise and heavy traffic. Like most of Southern California, Eastvale enjoys gorgeous Mediterranean weather, consisting of hot summers and mild winters. If you like relaxing by the pool or just chilling in the park on a hot day, then this might be the perfect spot for you.
Eastvale is also renowned for the high education standards in the local area. The locality is served by a highly repeatable school board, and there are a number of well-respected public and private education options available. The safe and secure atmosphere of Eastvale makes for a perfect place to teach children and to raise a family in general. This has helped make the area extremely popular among young families or couples looking to start a family soon.
Get on I-15 S in Norco from Citrus St and Hamner Ave
9 min (3.6 mi)
Head south on Sungold Ave toward Elm Grove Ave
390 ft
Turn left onto Elm Grove Ave
0.2 mi
Turn right onto Peach Grove Ln
253 ft
Turn left onto Corona Valley Ave
259 ft
Turn left onto Star Ruby Ave
0.1 mi
Turn left onto Harrison Ave
0.2 mi
Turn right onto Citrus St
1.5 mi
Turn right onto Hamner Ave
1.0 mi
Turn left onto Norco Dr/Sixth St
348 ft
Turn right to merge onto I-15 S
0.3 mi
Follow I-15 S to Cajalco Rd in Corona. Take exit 91 from I-15 S
8 min (8.4 mi)
Merge onto I-15 S
2.9 mi
Keep left to stay on I-15 S
4.2 mi
Keep left to stay on I-15 S
0.9 mi
Take exit 91 toward Cajalco Rd
0.3 mi
Follow Cajalco Rd and Temescal Canyon Rd to your destination
3 min (1.1 mi)
Turn left onto Cajalco Rd
0.7 mi
Turn right onto Temescal Canyon Rd
0.3 mi
Turn right
138 ft
Turn left
69 ft
Turn right
69 ft
Turn left
Destination will be on the right
285 ft