You begin your divorce by contacting a good attorney who knows what they are doing, and your attorney will consult with you, advise you whether you should even get a divorce, talk about the relevant issues you have to deal with, whether now is even a good time to file, what sort of planning you need to do, and the attorney will instruct you how to proceed forward.
By: Scott Shaw
You begin your divorce by contacting a good attorney who knows what they are doing, and your attorney will consult with you, advise you whether you should even get a divorce, talk about the relevant issues you have to deal with, whether now is even a good time to file, what sort of planning you need to do, and the attorney will instruct you how to proceed forward.
By: Scott Shaw
In equitable division, stock options are subject to be divided in a divorce. Now, stock options can be a very complicated asset to divide. Not all employer plans actually allow stock options to be divided to each party, so you often have to determine what the monetary value of the stock option is to make sure the options can be divided.
Sometimes, you have to become a trustee for your spouse. A very complicated issue, and often is very hotly contested, is what if there are contingencies to be awarded of your stock option or other investment vehicle. For example, let’s say you have options that you’ve been awarded, but you only get them if you remain in the company – the golden handcuffs or something. You can argue that those options, even though it’s your option to quit the company, should not be awarded as marital property because if you don’t work the four years after the marriage, you don’t get them.
These are hotly contested issues. But, in general, your typical stock option that has been invested during the marriage needs to be valued and the property is divided in equitable division in the State of Georgia.
By: Scott Shaw
In equitable division, stock options are subject to be divided in a divorce. Now, stock options can be a very complicated asset to divide. Not all employer plans actually allow stock options to be divided to each party, so you often have to determine what the monetary value of the stock option is to make sure the options can be divided.
Sometimes, you have to become a trustee for your spouse. A very complicated issue, and often is very hotly contested, is what if there are contingencies to be awarded of your stock option or other investment vehicle. For example, let’s say you have options that you’ve been awarded, but you only get them if you remain in the company – the golden handcuffs or something. You can argue that those options, even though it’s your option to quit the company, should not be awarded as marital property because if you don’t work the four years after the marriage, you don’t get them.
These are hotly contested issues. But, in general, your typical stock option that has been invested during the marriage needs to be valued and the property is divided in equitable division in the State of Georgia.
By: Scott Shaw
The process for filing a divorce is, at least with our firm, we issue a divorce questionnaire to you which is about 26 pages. But don’t worry about it, it’s not as hard as it seems. What we try to do is get an idea of what the marital state and now marital state is. And we also get personal information.
From there we draft up a divorce complaint. The divorce complaint is drafted, and we usually email it to you, because there is a page at the end of the divorce complaint called the verification page, that the client needs to execute and then return the original to us.
Once we have that back, then we file with a clerk at court. The case will be filed in one of two places, either in the county where the other party lives, or if the other party lived in a marital home within the past six months, the county where the marital home is. So the case will be filed in one of those two counties. Then the case will either be put off for sheriff service, service per by the process server, or we will ask the other party to voluntarily acknowledge service, which is the friendly way to do it. But that doesn’t work in every case.
By: Scott Shaw
The process for filing a divorce is, at least with our firm, we issue a divorce questionnaire to you which is about 26 pages. But don’t worry about it, it’s not as hard as it seems. What we try to do is get an idea of what the marital state and now marital state is. And we also get personal information.
From there we draft up a divorce complaint. The divorce complaint is drafted, and we usually email it to you, because there is a page at the end of the divorce complaint called the verification page, that the client needs to execute and then return the original to us.
Once we have that back, then we file with a clerk at court. The case will be filed in one of two places, either in the county where the other party lives, or if the other party lived in a marital home within the past six months, the county where the marital home is. So the case will be filed in one of those two counties. Then the case will either be put off for sheriff service, service per by the process server, or we will ask the other party to voluntarily acknowledge service, which is the friendly way to do it. But that doesn’t work in every case.
By: Scott Shaw
In equitable division, one of the most issues that come up is to try to ascertain what is marital property and what is not marital property. Because if your property’s determined to be non-marital property, it cannot be divided according to accrual distribution. What non-marital property is, generally speaking, is if you own the property prior to marriage, you inherited the property or you were gifted the property. If you can prove that, the property remains yours.
One of the most complicating factors is what if you have non-marital property that has both portions of marital and non-marital aspects to it. Valuing that property and proving up your non-marital interest is one of the most valuable issues that a good attorney can do for you. Whereas, marital property is all subject to be divided between the parties and the spouses in a divorce.
By: Scott Shaw
In equitable division, one of the most issues that come up is to try to ascertain what is marital property and what is not marital property. Because if your property’s determined to be non-marital property, it cannot be divided according to accrual distribution. What non-marital property is, generally speaking, is if you own the property prior to marriage, you inherited the property or you were gifted the property. If you can prove that, the property remains yours.
One of the most complicating factors is what if you have non-marital property that has both portions of marital and non-marital aspects to it. Valuing that property and proving up your non-marital interest is one of the most valuable issues that a good attorney can do for you. Whereas, marital property is all subject to be divided between the parties and the spouses in a divorce.
By: Scott Shaw
Again that depends on whether it’s a non-contested divorce with all terms settled or whether it’s a contested divorce. Contested divorces go anywhere for $2,500, $20,000, $30,000 or higher. I would say that if you have a contested middle class divorce, the average is between $5 and $20,000. If you have a contested divorce with an estate in the seven figure range, you’re probably talking $20 to $50,000 in cost. If you have an uncontested divorce in which all the terms are agreed to, we can usually do that for a flat fee of around $2,000.
By: Scott Shaw
Again that depends on whether it’s a non-contested divorce with all terms settled or whether it’s a contested divorce. Contested divorces go anywhere for $2,500, $20,000, $30,000 or higher. I would say that if you have a contested middle class divorce, the average is between $5 and $20,000. If you have a contested divorce with an estate in the seven figure range, you’re probably talking $20 to $50,000 in cost. If you have an uncontested divorce in which all the terms are agreed to, we can usually do that for a flat fee of around $2,000.
By: Scott Shaw
The answer is no. The court offers mediation services and many counties require mediation of a case, not all counties. For example, Gwinnett country won’t require you to mediate, but they do encourage it. And other counties like county require mediation. But in regards to marriage counseling and trying to patch the marriage up, that’s something we can agree to. We can even get the court to sign an order that the parties will try to go to marriage counseling, but the court will not offer such a service to you.
By: Scott Shaw
The answer is no. The court offers mediation services and many counties require mediation of a case, not all counties. For example, Gwinnett country won’t require you to mediate, but they do encourage it. And other counties like county require mediation. But in regards to marriage counseling and trying to patch the marriage up, that’s something we can agree to. We can even get the court to sign an order that the parties will try to go to marriage counseling, but the court will not offer such a service to you.
By: Scott Shaw
Maybe the most common is what to do with the marital home and it’s not such an simple issue as one might think. Issues run the gamut. For example, what if one party wants to stay in the house, but the other party is the person whose name is on the mortgage? You don’t want to let that party stay in the house when they have no skin of the game. What if they don’t pay the mortgage? The other guy’s the one who’s going to be collected on and have their credit rating hurt. So, you need to address issues like that.
There’s also issues, how do you value the home? What if you want to sell the home? What’s the procedure to do it? You don’t want to happen what happened on one of the cases I had where previous counsel before me had agreed they’ll just average up the husband and wife’s selling price and sell it as an average. The home stayed in the market for 720 days. It deteriorated to practically nothing because the wife wanted to stay in there free. So, it was worth $2,000,000. The husband thought it was worth nothing, so it was worth $400,000. You average it together, it wasn’t worth anywhere near what the average was. So, you have to take into consideration things even as minute as the process to sell the home.
By: Scott Shaw
Maybe the most common is what to do with the marital home and it’s not such an simple issue as one might think. Issues run the gamut. For example, what if one party wants to stay in the house, but the other party is the person whose name is on the mortgage? You don’t want to let that party stay in the house when they have no skin of the game. What if they don’t pay the mortgage? The other guy’s the one who’s going to be collected on and have their credit rating hurt. So, you need to address issues like that.
There’s also issues, how do you value the home? What if you want to sell the home? What’s the procedure to do it? You don’t want to happen what happened on one of the cases I had where previous counsel before me had agreed they’ll just average up the husband and wife’s selling price and sell it as an average. The home stayed in the market for 720 days. It deteriorated to practically nothing because the wife wanted to stay in there free. So, it was worth $2,000,000. The husband thought it was worth nothing, so it was worth $400,000. You average it together, it wasn’t worth anywhere near what the average was. So, you have to take into consideration things even as minute as the process to sell the home.
By: Scott Shaw
In a divorce in Georgia, an issue that often comes up is how do you divide a military pension? Under federal law, a military pension is considered to be marital property in a divorce. Now the entirety of the military pension may not be marital, but the portion that you earn during the marriage is subject to be divided in the state of Georgia.
So one of the first challenges you have is to ascertain what portion of your military pension is going to be marital property and subject to division and what portion is not, and therefore you’ll get to keep without dividing it with your spouse, and this is not an issue. It’s just any attorney can figure out for you.
It’s often mistakes are often made on it. Another misconception for military pensions is people often think that you have to be in the military for ten years in order for a pension to be divided, but that’s not true. The ten year rule only applies to how long you have to be married if you want the military to garnish your share of the pension.
If you’re married for less than ten years, the pension is still subject to be divided. You just have to get it paid directly from the spouse who receives the military pension. Military pensions are a frequent issue in divorce. Shaw Law Firm has handled many of these. If you have any questions, we’d be happy to take your telephone calls or inquiries. Thank you.
By: Scott Shaw
In a divorce in Georgia, an issue that often comes up is how do you divide a military pension? Under federal law, a military pension is considered to be marital property in a divorce. Now the entirety of the military pension may not be marital, but the portion that you earn during the marriage is subject to be divided in the state of Georgia.
So one of the first challenges you have is to ascertain what portion of your military pension is going to be marital property and subject to division and what portion is not, and therefore you’ll get to keep without dividing it with your spouse, and this is not an issue. It’s just any attorney can figure out for you.
It’s often mistakes are often made on it. Another misconception for military pensions is people often think that you have to be in the military for ten years in order for a pension to be divided, but that’s not true. The ten year rule only applies to how long you have to be married if you want the military to garnish your share of the pension.
If you’re married for less than ten years, the pension is still subject to be divided. You just have to get it paid directly from the spouse who receives the military pension. Military pensions are a frequent issue in divorce. Shaw Law Firm has handled many of these. If you have any questions, we’d be happy to take your telephone calls or inquiries. Thank you.
By: Scott Shaw
In a divorce proceeding, debt is often a very big issue – who’s responsible for what debt. It’s often one of the most difficult issues to deal with, because first you have to figure out what the debt was, who incurred the debt, what the debt was incurred for? Was it incurred for a girlfriend? Was it incurred to raise the family? Who should actively be responsible for the debt?
Once you’ve determined who should be responsible for what debt, it’s very important to remember that although the court can order one party to pay your debt, the court cannot order the party who owns that debt to not hold you responsible for liable. For example, if the court orders your husband to pay off your credit card, but your husband files for bankruptcy, you’re suddenly liable for that debt. It’s issues like that that we have to address in order to protect our clients, and make sure that the issue of debt is properly taken care of in divorce.
By: Scott Shaw
In a divorce proceeding, debt is often a very big issue – who’s responsible for what debt. It’s often one of the most difficult issues to deal with, because first you have to figure out what the debt was, who incurred the debt, what the debt was incurred for? Was it incurred for a girlfriend? Was it incurred to raise the family? Who should actively be responsible for the debt?
Once you’ve determined who should be responsible for what debt, it’s very important to remember that although the court can order one party to pay your debt, the court cannot order the party who owns that debt to not hold you responsible for liable. For example, if the court orders your husband to pay off your credit card, but your husband files for bankruptcy, you’re suddenly liable for that debt. It’s issues like that that we have to address in order to protect our clients, and make sure that the issue of debt is properly taken care of in divorce.
By: Scott Shaw
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