Home | Relationships | Divorce

Financial Divorce Considerations and Implications

By: James Walsh

Read More About Divorce

Many people are tempted to get done with the divorce process as soon as possible and may not spend much time and attention to the financial concerns. However, you could be running a huge risk by doing so. Financial decisions should be thought through carefully with the help of a competent divorce lawyer. There are times when one of the partners may not be working in order to take care of the children. More often, the women take up the role of a homemaker. This will impact your dependent spouse’s needs and long-term plans. If the dependent partner needs time to look for a job, then you may have to pay the spouse maintenance until the time your spouse finds a job. The parent who gets the custody of the children will be entitled to receive child support from his or her spouse.

The decisions of the courts with respect to financial settlements have changed considerably over the past few years. Earlier, if one of the partners committed adultery or acted unreasonably in the marriage, it could have had an effect on their financial settlement. However, now, the courts consider the financial aspect as an independent variable, which is not influenced by the reason for divorce. Conduct may be considered by the court where the conduct is especially of concern and where not considering it would be an obvious error. There are no rules that indicate whether a husband will be more favoured by the court or the wife. The court will consider and apply Section 25 while considering the finances. This section primarily looks at the assets of the marriage, age of both the partners, length of the marriage, or if there are any children involved. Divorce settlements are increasingly focusing on equality these days and there is no discrimination between husband and wife. A partner who may have supported their spouse to be a homemaker and care for the house and children is likely to get an equal claim in the marital assets. The case of Cowan vs. Cowan can aid in understanding the fair benefits provided by the courts these days. In this case, the husband was a wealthy businessman and owned significant financial assets due to the business. However, during the settlement, the wife received only 38% of the property as opposed to 50% because, according the court’s view, the husband had more contribution towards the business and, hence, was entitled to keep more assets related to the business.

Physical assets such as your property deserve special attention at the time of divorce. If you are receiving some property from your husband, the asset would need to be transferred before or in the year of separation because performing transfers later than that can result in payment of capital gains taxes. Your residential home is exempt from capital gains tax when you sell or transfer it, provided you have lived in your home throughout your ownership and the house is your only primary residence. In addition, make sure that you reach an agreement on the mortgage payments of the house. Another important financial aspect that should not go neglected is your pension and insurance. Many people do not give pension that much importance because they find the subject of pension hard to grasp. If your spouse has been contributing to a pension fund whereas you have not, you will have to make sure that a part of this pension fund is assigned to you. The court can issue either a pension attachment order or a pension sharing order in such cases. A pension attachment order will give you a share of the value of the pension at the time of retirement, whereas a pension sharing order will give you a share of the value of the pension at the time of the divorce. Divorce brings about significant changes in your finances and your insurance needs are also bound to change. Firstly, check with your insurance companies if your benefits will remain the same after divorce and remarriage or not. You and your partner would need to decide on who will pay for the children’s medical insurance. The court will not be able to order your spouse to pay insurance premiums. Therefore, if you need your spouse to make such payments, it is important for your spouse to give a promise in the court to take care of these payments. This promise will make the arrangement legally binding.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you would like more information on how to get a quickie Divorce see www.quickie-divorce.com

Please Rate this Article

 

Not yet Rated

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Divorce Articles Via RSS!
Additional Articles From - Home | Relationships | Divorce
Sign Up for a free account.
Our other websites
All about SEO
Beauty Tips Forum
Submit Articles
Member Login
Link Us
Submission Guidelines
Ezine Notifications
Article RSS Feeds
Sitemap
New Stuff
About Us
Developer
Good shopping portal
Link to Us
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service

counter easy hit

Powered by Article Dashboard