In Arizona, child custody is now called legal decision-making. The law establishes a preference for joint legal decision-making, and a parent seeking sole legal decision-making will have the burden to prove to the court why such an order is in the best interest of the minor children. Some acceptable reasons might include drug or alcohol abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse or mental illness.
In making it’s order, the court is required to consider all information that is relevant to the children’s best interest and in particular, the eleven statutory factors. I won’t describe all of those factors here, but they include the past, present and potential future relationship between the parent and the children; the children’s relationship with family members and their adjustment to home, school and community; the mental and physical health of the parents and the children; and if the children are of suitable age and maturity, the wishes of the children.
On this last point, there is no specific age at which a child gets to choose where to live. As the child gets closer to age 18, his or her wishes will carry more weight with the court. Typically, courts start giving significant weight to the child’s wishes around age 12 or 13. If you have more questions concerning legal decision-making or parenting time, please contact me.
In Arizona, child custody is now called legal decision-making. The law establishes a preference for joint legal decision-making, and a parent seeking sole legal decision-making will have the burden to prove to the court why such an order is in the best interest of the minor children. Some acceptable reasons might include drug or alcohol abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse or mental illness.
In making it’s order, the court is required to consider all information that is relevant to the children’s best interest and in particular, the eleven statutory factors. I won’t describe all of those factors here, but they include the past, present and potential future relationship between the parent and the children; the children’s relationship with family members and their adjustment to home, school and community; the mental and physical health of the parents and the children; and if the children are of suitable age and maturity, the wishes of the children.
On this last point, there is no specific age at which a child gets to choose where to live. As the child gets closer to age 18, his or her wishes will carry more weight with the court. Typically, courts start giving significant weight to the child’s wishes around age 12 or 13. If you have more questions concerning legal decision-making or parenting time, please contact me.
In Arizona, all property acquired during the marriage is presumed to be community property, while all property owned prior to the marriage is the sole and separate property of that spouse. In a divorce, the court must allocate the separate property to the appropriate spouse and equitably divide all of the community property between both spouses.
If your retirement account was earned entirely during the marriage, then it is presumed to be community property and will be divided equitably, which basically means equally, if your retirement account was earned partially before marriage and partially during the marriage, then it has both a separate property and community property component. The division of these mixed accounts is much more difficult and often requires an expert, such a financial analyst or CPA, to calculate the separate and community portions of the account.
To implement the division of certain retirement accounts, a qualified domestic relations order, or a QDRO, may be required. Division of retirement accounts can be confusing and complicated, and it is recommended that you seek advice from an experienced attorney if these issues are present in your divorce case. If you would like more information, please contact me.
In Arizona, all property acquired during the marriage is presumed to be community property, while all property owned prior to the marriage is the sole and separate property of that spouse. In a divorce, the court must allocate the separate property to the appropriate spouse and equitably divide all of the community property between both spouses.
If your retirement account was earned entirely during the marriage, then it is presumed to be community property and will be divided equitably, which basically means equally, if your retirement account was earned partially before marriage and partially during the marriage, then it has both a separate property and community property component. The division of these mixed accounts is much more difficult and often requires an expert, such a financial analyst or CPA, to calculate the separate and community portions of the account.
To implement the division of certain retirement accounts, a qualified domestic relations order, or a QDRO, may be required. Division of retirement accounts can be confusing and complicated, and it is recommended that you seek advice from an experienced attorney if these issues are present in your divorce case. If you would like more information, please contact me.
In Arizona, property is characterized as community or separate property, as well as joint or common property. The legal characterization of your property may have a significant impact on the course decisions regarding possession, management, or control of the property, as well as division or disposition of the property.
The term property generally refers to all forms or real and personal property including but not limited to: real estate, including homes and undeveloped land, bank and other financial accounts, IRAs, 401(k)s, pension plans and other retirement accounts, stock options, vehicles, and other personal property items. Here’s how community and separate property rights are defined by statute. Community property generally describes all property acquired by either spouse during the party’s marriage.
Typically, it does not matter whether the property’s titled in one or both spouses’ names, so long as the property was acquired by either spouse during the marriage. The most significant exceptions to this general community property rule pertain to property acquired by gift to a particular spouse or through a spouse’s inheritance during marriage. Spouses generally have equal management, control, and disposition rights over their community property.
Separate property generally describes a spouse’s property which is owned by that spouse before marriage or is acquired during marriage by gift or inheritance, and also includes the increase, rents, issues, and profits of that property. In addition, property which is acquired by a spouse after severance of a petition for dissolution of marriage, legal separation, or annulment is also the separate property of that spouse, if the petition results in a decree of dissolution of marriage, legal separation or annulment. Each spouse generally has the sole management, control, and disposition rights of each spouse’s separate property.
By: Kevin Park
In Arizona, property is characterized as community or separate property, as well as joint or common property. The legal characterization of your property may have a significant impact on the course decisions regarding possession, management, or control of the property, as well as division or disposition of the property.
The term property generally refers to all forms or real and personal property including but not limited to: real estate, including homes and undeveloped land, bank and other financial accounts, IRAs, 401(k)s, pension plans and other retirement accounts, stock options, vehicles, and other personal property items. Here’s how community and separate property rights are defined by statute. Community property generally describes all property acquired by either spouse during the party’s marriage.
Typically, it does not matter whether the property’s titled in one or both spouses’ names, so long as the property was acquired by either spouse during the marriage. The most significant exceptions to this general community property rule pertain to property acquired by gift to a particular spouse or through a spouse’s inheritance during marriage. Spouses generally have equal management, control, and disposition rights over their community property.
Separate property generally describes a spouse’s property which is owned by that spouse before marriage or is acquired during marriage by gift or inheritance, and also includes the increase, rents, issues, and profits of that property. In addition, property which is acquired by a spouse after severance of a petition for dissolution of marriage, legal separation, or annulment is also the separate property of that spouse, if the petition results in a decree of dissolution of marriage, legal separation or annulment. Each spouse generally has the sole management, control, and disposition rights of each spouse’s separate property.
By: Kevin Park
A wage assignment is something that the court does when the payer of child support is employed, if he has a job, an employer, somebody who pays him salary twice a month or once a month. The court will issue an order to his employer instructing him to deduct the amount of child support on the court’s order for child support from his salary each time a check is written to him.
So it can be twice a month, once a week, once a month and any changes that the employer wants to make, needs to make has to go through the court. If anyone has any difficulty with that, they are free to call us anytime.
By: CD Owens
A wage assignment is something that the court does when the payer of child support is employed, if he has a job, an employer, somebody who pays him salary twice a month or once a month. The court will issue an order to his employer instructing him to deduct the amount of child support on the court’s order for child support from his salary each time a check is written to him.
So it can be twice a month, once a week, once a month and any changes that the employer wants to make, needs to make has to go through the court. If anyone has any difficulty with that, they are free to call us anytime.
By: CD Owens
As you might imagine, parenting time or the enforcement of parenting time is an issue that we deal with frequently. There’s a couple ways to deal with it. First, and the way that we prefer, is to be able contact the other party, or perhaps their attorney and try to resolve the issue informally. That can result in an agreement between the parties, it can be approved by the court and you’re essentially done. A more formal process is to file a petition to enforce parenting time. That petition itself is generally, fairly brief and fairly simple. However, the process of getting a court order on that petition can be rather involved and rather significant. If you have any specific questions or have other requests, please don’t hesitate to contact me at Hildebrand Law. The phone number is (480) 305-8300. Thank you.
Contact an Arizona divorce lawyer to begin enforcing your parenting time.
As you might imagine, parenting time or the enforcement of parenting time is an issue that we deal with frequently. There’s a couple ways to deal with it. First, and the way that we prefer, is to be able contact the other party, or perhaps their attorney and try to resolve the issue informally. That can result in an agreement between the parties, it can be approved by the court and you’re essentially done. A more formal process is to file a petition to enforce parenting time. That petition itself is generally, fairly brief and fairly simple. However, the process of getting a court order on that petition can be rather involved and rather significant. If you have any specific questions or have other requests, please don’t hesitate to contact me at Hildebrand Law. The phone number is (480) 305-8300. Thank you.
Contact an Arizona divorce lawyer to begin enforcing your parenting time.
Hi. I’m Jason Castle. I’m a partner at Jaburg & Wilk. My practice areas focus on family law and criminal defense. Prenuptial agreements have grown in popularity over the last few years. Prenuptial agreements are agreements that become effective at the date of marriage. They’re very broad in what they can cover.
One example of that is a social media clause which is also fairly new and growing in popularity. A social media clause in your agreement would negotiate prior to the marriage how social media will be utilized during the marriage and in the event of a divorce. You can outline, for example, what can and cannot be posted on social media websites. You can also determine who is going to control photos and information that is recorded during your marriage.
I recently wrote an article about couples that have engaged in private moments and recorded them on film or camera, and the concerns that arise at the point of a divorce when one of the parties decides to post that information on the Internet for the world to see. In the event that you’ve thought of this beforehand and you had a social media clause, you could preclude that, and you could also include sanctions and methods for you to remove the materials from the Internet once it does occur.
By: Jason Castle
Hi. I’m Jason Castle. I’m a partner at Jaburg & Wilk. My practice areas focus on family law and criminal defense. Prenuptial agreements have grown in popularity over the last few years. Prenuptial agreements are agreements that become effective at the date of marriage. They’re very broad in what they can cover.
One example of that is a social media clause which is also fairly new and growing in popularity. A social media clause in your agreement would negotiate prior to the marriage how social media will be utilized during the marriage and in the event of a divorce. You can outline, for example, what can and cannot be posted on social media websites. You can also determine who is going to control photos and information that is recorded during your marriage.
I recently wrote an article about couples that have engaged in private moments and recorded them on film or camera, and the concerns that arise at the point of a divorce when one of the parties decides to post that information on the Internet for the world to see. In the event that you’ve thought of this beforehand and you had a social media clause, you could preclude that, and you could also include sanctions and methods for you to remove the materials from the Internet once it does occur.
By: Jason Castle
State law requires that any person who has a reasonable belief that a child is a victim of intentional physical injury, abuse or neglect, report their beliefs to either law enforcement or child protective services. Other people that have a mandate to make reports to Child Protective Services are medical providers, mental health providers, parents, guardians, educators and law enforcement. When a report is made, perhaps the easiest thing to do is to actually call child protective services at 1-888-SOS-CHILD. When you make a report, you should expect to give CPS contact information about the child’s parents, identification information about the child, and of course the nature of the allegations that are being made. If you’d like to talk to me further about your question as to reporting abuse or neglect to child protective services, please give me a call at Hildebrand Law. (480) 305-8300. Thank you.
State law requires that any person who has a reasonable belief that a child is a victim of intentional physical injury, abuse or neglect, report their beliefs to either law enforcement or child protective services. Other people that have a mandate to make reports to Child Protective Services are medical providers, mental health providers, parents, guardians, educators and law enforcement. When a report is made, perhaps the easiest thing to do is to actually call child protective services at 1-888-SOS-CHILD. When you make a report, you should expect to give CPS contact information about the child’s parents, identification information about the child, and of course the nature of the allegations that are being made. If you’d like to talk to me further about your question as to reporting abuse or neglect to child protective services, please give me a call at Hildebrand Law. (480) 305-8300. Thank you.
I’m Kathi Sandweiss. I’m the Chair of the appellate practice section at Jaburg and Wilk.
You can appeal basically any final judgement, and that means you can appeal a dissolution, but it’s not as if you’re no longer divorced. You’re not appealing the fact of the divorce. What you’re appealing typically is about money. It can be about something else, but typically somebody will appeal a distribution of property, for example. And a lot of times that will go back to what the lower court determined was the value, for example, of a business. And the value of that business will then impact how your property is distributed.
One of the basic errors that someone alleges in the divorce decree, in the dissolution decree is that a business was not valued properly. So, that goes back to a dueling expert standard. My expert witness, say, valued my art practice at $300,000. Your expert witness valued my business at $500,000, and that’ll determine a lot of how much money is distributed to each party. The problem with it is you’re looking at credibility of witnesses, and you don’t want to be in the position of asking the higher court to determine that there was a factual error because that’s a much tougher standard on appeal.
By: Kathi Sandweiss
I’m Kathi Sandweiss. I’m the Chair of the appellate practice section at Jaburg and Wilk.
You can appeal basically any final judgement, and that means you can appeal a dissolution, but it’s not as if you’re no longer divorced. You’re not appealing the fact of the divorce. What you’re appealing typically is about money. It can be about something else, but typically somebody will appeal a distribution of property, for example. And a lot of times that will go back to what the lower court determined was the value, for example, of a business. And the value of that business will then impact how your property is distributed.
One of the basic errors that someone alleges in the divorce decree, in the dissolution decree is that a business was not valued properly. So, that goes back to a dueling expert standard. My expert witness, say, valued my art practice at $300,000. Your expert witness valued my business at $500,000, and that’ll determine a lot of how much money is distributed to each party. The problem with it is you’re looking at credibility of witnesses, and you don’t want to be in the position of asking the higher court to determine that there was a factual error because that’s a much tougher standard on appeal.
By: Kathi Sandweiss
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