If there are children in involved in the marriage, the parent who acts as the primary caregiver and takes care of the kids the most is the one who remains with them in the marital home. In case there are no kids involved and the house is owned by one spouse, under the law the other will have to leave the marital home.
However, while you may not have kids the couple may own the marital home together; this can become a tricky situation. Keep in mind that you cannot kick each other out. Requesting one person to leave is a possibility, but you cannot demand it. If the couple is unable to make a joint decision on their marital home, the court will take over and make this decision on behalf of the couple. Since typical court cases can take up to several months, and you may require a quick decision from the court about who gets the marital home, then you can always apply for a temporary order. In the case of couple separation, important issues can be resolved temporarily before the court. Temporary orders remain valid until the next hearing or the spouses are able to come to a settlement through mediation or negotiation.
If one person prevents you from coming to the house and changes locks in the process, the other has the right to call in the police. The police will ensure that the spouse opens the door to let you in. In case of owning the property together, the only instance where one spouse can ask the other to leave is when there has been domestic violence committed and the judge provides you with a restraining order.
Whatever the circumstances may be, make certain that you do not state there was domestic violence just to get the marital home and your spouse thrown out of it. Some couples have resorted to extremism in their divorces. If the court realizes this untruth, the person claiming that violence took place may be asked to leave the home and the court may even become biased against this party in future dealings. If you feel that you may be in the middle of domestic violence then contact the necessary authorities.
A prenup is short for prenuptial agreement and is set in place by two people before marriage in the form of a written contract. A prenup will list each person’s assets, properties and even debts after the marriage. The popular opinion states that prenups are mainly for rich people. Prenups are used often to ensure that the wealthy fiancé is able to protect his or her assets. But, a couple of average means can also agree to a prenup for various other purposes than simply wanting to protect their assets.
If a couple marries bringing children from earlier marriages, they may agree to a prenup so that in case of death what they desire for their kids is specifically written out. A prenup in this circumstance is used so that their separate property can be owned by their children in case of death. Without a written contract, the surviving party may be able to claim a portion of the property belonging to the deceased spouse, and leave less than half for the children.
A prenup is also used by couples either with kids or without kids, wealthy or average means who want to simply clarify their financial responsibilities and rights within the marriage.
Some couple agree to a prenup in order to avoid unnecessary arguments in case there is a divorce, by stating in advance how they wish their property to be divided and if either spouse will be entitled to receive alimony or not. A few States make certain that the spouse can always retain the right to receiving alimony. However, in many States the alimony question of giving it up will be scrutinized heavily unless the party who is giving up the alimony doesn’t have a lawyer and so the State won’t enforce it on the couple.
A prenup is good to provide protection to each spouse from the other’s debt and this may lead to a multitude of problems as well.
If the couple does not have a prenup, the State will determine according to its laws who will own which property in the marriage and in case of death or divorce what happens to each property as well.
Once you’ve filed for bankruptcy it automatically requires that debt collectors and creditors leave you alone and stop their harassment. Until the process of bankruptcy is completed, debt collectors and creditors will be required to stop enforcing their collection efforts on you.
If all you are interested in is getting the debt collectors to stop contacting you, there is another route you can take. There is a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act in place where you can send in a request to ensure that the debt collectors put an end to contacting you. Simply send in a request letter indicating that you want the collectors to stop all communication they have with you. This leads to the collection agency employees from being prohibited to continuing to have any contact except to inform you that they have ended their collection efforts.
When filing for bankruptcy you are awarded something known as ‘automatic stay’ where any lawsuits filed by creditors, collection agencies or entities of the government will be stopped immediately. You may be at risk of foreclosure, eviction, contempt of failing to pay towards child support, losing basic services such as unemployment benefits, welfare and even your job. All these reasons may provide you enough backup to go ahead and file for bankruptcy. The automatic stay is in effect with regard to daily emergencies.
If you have not paid your utility bills and the utility company is threatening they will disconnect the gas, water or telephone, the automatic stay will ensure that disconnection is prevented for another 20 days. If the mortgage on your home is facing foreclosure, the automatic stay will halt the proceedings temporarily. The creditor may be able to continue with the foreclosure but this gives you some breathing space. The automatic stay is powerful in the case of eviction where the court is able to buy you some time. You will probably receive a few more days or weeks of a grace period as long as the landlord does not request the court to proceed with eviction and lift the automatic stay.
If you’ve been accumulating traffic tickets one too many times, sometimes posing a challenge to the police officer to rethink the scenario of what actually took place can be rather easy. A police officer can make a subjective decision depending on the situation and whether you actually violated the law. This is the first strategy of fighting a traffic ticket.
In a situation where the police office must make an objective decision, it often comes down to whose version of the story seems most acceptable. For instance, if you failed to stop at the red light, or made a prohibited turn the judge can decide depending on what he hears and believes from the two versions. Most of the time, the police officer’s version is deemed true. That is unless you can cast a doubt on the accuracy of the officer’s story. There are several ways of raising reasonable doubt. For instance, you can obtain witness statements such as bystanders and passengers to testify on your behalf citing your version of the story. Present a clear diagram placing your vehicle and the police officer’s vehicle with traffic signals and retell your version of the story to prove its accuracy.
Some judges allow leniency if your circumstances were beyond control. If you prove that you made an honest mistake, the judge may claim ‘mistake of fact’ which means that you won’t be getting another ticket. Some examples where this kind of leniency is practiced if you couldn’t clearly see the pedestrian crossing because they were faded or you didn’t stop at the stop sign due to a broken branch blocking your view or a major storm.
You may argue that your conduct was legally justified considering the situation of the so called violation. For instance, if you were pulled over for driving slowly, you can always state that in order to make a left turn you were forced to slow down. This situation does not cause you to deny any of the facts, simply justify them. You can also provide additional facts to legally justify this supposed unlawful action.
The fifth strategy of fighting a traffic ticket it to prove you had to avoid necessary harm when breaking the law. All 50 states recognize ‘necessity defense’ where emergencies created by another person puts you in the safe seat. For instance, if you were driving at high speed to avoid an oncoming truck which seemed to be out of control, you can convince the law that you were simply trying to avoid immediate and serious danger.
To file for bankruptcy depends on the kind of debt you have acquired over the years. Bankruptcy is a good plan to eliminate medical debts, credit card debt, unsecured debt and deficiencies that have resulted from foreclosure and repossession. There are several chapters to Bankruptcy you should be aware of before filing for this mode. For instance, Chapter 7 states that your debt will be discharged by the end of the bankruptcy. On the other hand, Chapter 13 states that there is the possibility you will have to pay off part of the unsecured debt by agreeing to a repayment plan. Remember, that if you have accumulated debts safeguarded by property in the form of a vehicle or home, simple because the debt is cancelled it does not indicate that you retain the right to keeping your property.
Certain kinds of debt is never cancelled or discharged during bankruptcy. This includes spousal support arrears, child support, tax debts and student loans. In the case of student loans it is sometimes cancelled but only in limited situations.
While bankruptcy eliminates most debt, not all types of debt is eliminated. Before filing for bankruptcy ensure which debt will be eliminated and which will not be eliminated. Credit card debt for instance is one type of debt you can eliminate. But other debts such as alimony, secured debts and child support cannot be rid of that easily. But, if you are handling some serious debt issues, bankruptcy is a powerful remedy.
Bankruptcy will wipe out your credit card debt unless your credit card is secures under some special scheme. Generally, credit card debt is unsecured which means that the creditor does not have a legal hold on any type of property and so cannot repossess your assets in case you fail to settle your debt on the credit card. This is the kind of debt that bankruptcy aims at eliminating. Aside from credit cards, there may be other unsecured debt that bankruptcy will be able to wipe out.
Most arrests made on DWI or driving while intoxicated is usually the result of illegal drugs or alcohol. However, there are legal prescription drugs you can buy over the counter that can also result in impaired driving which leads to possible arrest.
While a State generally punishes a person who was driving while intoxicated, it does not purely limit to those on illegal drugs and alcohol. A person impaired by over the counter legal drugs can also be found just as guilty as someone driving under the influence. The law in Massachusetts, for instance, specifically states some of the drugs resulting in impairment including depressants, narcotic drugs and other similar substances. The law in California also states that if a person is charged with driving under the influence and is on a legal drug that resulted in impairment, the state will not go about making a defense case for the individual. California also singles out methodone which is used to treat addiction to heroin, but all other drugs are fair play. It is possible that as much as illegal drugs lead to impairment, so do legal drugs.
At the moment, the levels of drugs that can be in the system of someone without resulting in impairment have not been standardized. For alcohol it specifies the standard level in your blood is 0.08%. This issue is set to receive proper attention in the future because the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has voiced its concern about the use of drugs while driving and the effect it can have on one’s thinking. According to reports released in 2009, they found that there was a decrease in drunk driving, while up to 16% of drivers indicated that they have drug impairment in their system. This potential impairing lead them to study and conclude that it was not the effect of illegal drugs only, but over the counter prescription drugs such as sedatives, stimulants, narcotic analgesics and antidepressants were also equally capable of resulting in impairment.
In the first part of this series on real estate law, Michigan Attorney Brad Aldrich discusses the issue of Adverse Possession. He explains the time line of this process, the players involved, and a high level strategy for parties entered into adverse possession.
Adverse Possession is the process by which title to another’s real property is acquired without compensation, by holding the property in a manner that conflicts with the true owner’s rights for a specified period. This can be done by a city, county, or state.
Going through a divorce can be a painful experience. Chances are you have either been divorce, going through a divorce, or you know someone close to you that has went through a divorce. Divorce can be a devastating experience, and it changes lives forever. Although divorce is very hard on a husband and wife, children are the most affected by a divorce.
Much research has been done about divorce and how it affects children. Research has shown that divorce affects children to the equivalent of a death in the family. Divorce not only kills the close bond that children have with both parents, but it takes time away from one of the parents. This can cause depression and anxiety. Children sometimes believe they are the cause of the divorce. They sometimes believe the parent who leaves doesn’t love them anymore, or just wanted to get away from them. Many times parents are so caught up in their own grief that they fail to see, or understand the turmoil the breakup has caused for the children.
There are many affects divorce has on children. here are just a few:
Children who go through a divorce have more problems with schoolwork and keeping good grades. They have lower self esteem, thinking they are not worth much, or sometimes think they are a bad person. They have trouble getting along with their peers and their parents.
Breaking up a family has great consequences since the family is a stable part of a kids life. Mothers and fathers play the most important role as solid foundations for their children. They are the love giving and emotional supporters while teaching their children life skills and serve as role models.
Divorce has been shown to affect kids in many different ways from behavior, job employment, and relationships they have with future partners. Children consider family structure to be the most important part of life. Parents should try to avoid divorce at all costs when children will be involved.
