Category: Uncategorized

Updated: 02/27/2020

  What About Child Support Credits For Health Insurance Premiums I Paid?

The other thing that’s going to be considered in the child support formula and your child support credits is health insurance premiums. Not the expenses, but health insurance premiums. For example, let’s say that you are paying after the divorce or you know you’re going to be paying $100 extra for health insurance premiums. For the portion that is attributable to the children, this can be counted into the child support formula. You’re not going to get a credit for the portion that’s attributable to you, but for the portion that’s attributable just solely to the children. Same thing goes with the dental and vision premiums you pay. Anything that you can document that’s going to be on a pay stub, that’s going to be something that is considered as well.

         What About The Out of Pocket Expenses I Had To Pay? 

One of the things that you need to take into account though is it’s just the premiums and not the out of pocket expenses you will get credit for. What will happen if you did have out of pocket expenses? The court will usually look at the income of the parties and then they’re going to assess who’s responsible for the actual expenses. For Example: Let’s say that you’ve got two people and they have similar incomes. Generally, out of pocket expenses are going to be covered equally. Each one is going to be covering the out of pocket expenses that aren’t insurance 50/50. Now, if one person makes more, courts will generally say that between the two of them, 70% of the income is going to be one persons and 30% is the other. One person after the first $250 is going to cover the expenses 70% and the other will cover 30%. That is one example of what could happen in that situation. The other thing that the courts could take into account is your childcare expenses. You just have to keep track of that. It can actually be used to reduce the amount of child support that you pay. These are some different issues when it comes to child support that you can factor into and possibly use to reduce the amount of child support you pay or be used alternatively to increase the amount of child support that you receive. Just remember to document and keep track of everything so when the time is needed, you can present everything needed to make sure the courts calculate everything correctly for you.

Let’s say you brought a vehicle when that was paid off prior to getting married. That would be an example of something that would be tangible personal property, or your guns or your tools or your jewelry that you had prior to getting married. That would be non-marital property. Also, things that are gifts would be considered non-marital property. For example, if you get a gift from your parents or a friend, that would be considered to be your separate property. The court’s are going to make the determination whether the property’s marital or non-marital. If the property is marital, what’s supposed to happen is it’s going to go into the property distribution and the court’s going to make a determination about the value of the property. 99% of the time what will happen is that people will just agree as to what property is which persons.

You may say…”Okay, you can get the couch and I can get the car”. The car may not be an issue. Other property like clothing and tools and things that were acquired during the marriage may become the issue. A lot of times people will just decide on that. If you don’t both agree, what the court’s going to do is they’re going to put a value on that property once it’s all tallied up and then the court is going to divide that property between the people. Or alternatively, what the court will do, I’ve seen courts actually take the property and have it sold off. That’s something else that the courts going to do, is that they might sell off all of the tangible personal property and then the proceeds are going to be divided.

Just like we talked before about property distribution, it’s still going to come into the property distribution determination and once it does that, the court’s going to figure out how it should be divided. It’s just like anything else. If it’s considered to be marital property, it’s going to be factored into it in that respect. This sums up the subject of tangible personal property Today.

When you’re going through a divorce, you need the best legal support possible. You require somebody by your side who can provide a professional service throughout the legal process. That’s why choosing the right divorce lawyer is essential.

Every lawyer is different; each has his or her own approach. Choosing a divorce attorney in West Virginia is as much about personal preferences as it is about skills and qualifications. You need someone whom you feel that you can go to in your hour of need.

Do You Get Along on a Personal Level?

During divorce proceedings, you often have to share a lot of personal information about your relationship with your divorce lawyer. It can be an unnerving experience, especially if you’re not used to sharing this kind of information outside of your family. That’s why you want a sympathetic and compassionate attorney who understands you emotionally and can offer legal support in a way that is compassionate for you. Don’t be surprised if you find that you’re unable to get along with a particular lawyer – it could merely be a clash of personalities or that the law firm itself has the wrong approach to client relationships. Find a lawyer whom you feel comfortable with and can trust to guide you throughout your entire divorce proceeding.

Does the Lawyer Have Experience Fighting Cases Like Yours?

Your lawyer must have fought cases like yours in the past. You want to know whether they can win for their clients and get settlements that achieve the best outcome.

One of the best ways to do this is to look at reviews online. You can get a sense of the kind of outcomes that lawyers helped their clients attain.

It’s worth pointing out that you don’t need to choose a divorce lawyer who deals specifically with divorce cases. In reality, you’re unlikely to find one that focuses only on divorce, since most lawyers provide a range of services to their clients to make their roles more enjoyable. What you do want, however, is somebody who has significant experience divorce cases and has been helping clients for a long time.

Does the Divorce Lawyer Offer Consultations?

Most divorce lawyers offer consultations, allowing you to ask them questions and get to know them before you decide you want to take them on or not.

During the consultation, you’ll be able to ask them a series of questions, such as their hourly fees and whether they require a retainer or any money in advance.

Contact Your Local West Virginia Divorce Attorney

Pritt and Pritt Attorneys at Law, we’re committed to providing our clients with the best and most aggressive representation possible. Our divorce attorneys will help you to understand the divorce process and explain how each stage leads onto the next. We will guide you and represent you while negotiating with your spouse.

If you’re searching for a professional, compassionate divorce lawyer, we’re ready to assist you. We specialize in all aspects of divorce law, including family law, child custody, child support, alimony, and more. Contact us today to set up your consultation. 

Let’s say that after it’s all said and done, the person has an obligation to pay the other person 20 thousand dollars and let’s say that they just don’t. They’re not paying it and you file contempt and the court makes the determination that they have an inability to pay. Let’s say you’re awarded your attorney fees and you don’t want to go because all the court’s going to do is their way of collecting on it is somewhat limited. What they can do is they can do is threaten to throw that person in jail. or they can. That’s the main remedy and or you can be awarded your attorney fees, but that’s not going to give you the money that they owe to you.

What you can do is you can go through the collections process. That’s an alternative way to go about getting your money, and we’ve done that from time to time, especially in the context of attorney fees, when you’re, when one person is awarded the attorney fees. I’ve collected on attorney fees before. There is a process you can go through to collect on the judgment. Let’s say that it’s a judgment of, whether it’s like, for example for property of 20 thousand dollars, or let’s say you’re awarded your attorney fees of three or four thousand dollars.

One thing you can do is you can go through a process to actually collect and garnish their wages and it’s really interesting because for the most part there are certain things that are exempt from the bankruptcy laws so that you can still overall eventually collect on the judgment if it’s related to domestic relations. Now, that’s a whole other matter about going into whether you can or cannot override the bankruptcy laws. That’s an entirely different subject, but I’m assuming nobody’s filed for bankruptcy. You can either garnish wages or there’s a process if you know where their banks are you can levy their bank accounts and those are two ways that you can do it.

Also, potentially you can file a judgment lien on their property if they have it. Now, the problem with that though is it’s going to be a while before you actually get to collect on it because it’s generally not going to be dealt with until they actually sell the property. Those are just a few ways that you can actually collect on a judgment and it’s something that you might want to consider going forward in the event that they’re not paying. It’s an alternative way to go about getting somebody to pay other than contempt. That’s a little on collecting judgements in a West Virginia divorce. Most of the time, 90% of the time probably, or more, you just file a civil contempt, but there are other alternatives, like for example garnishing wages, going after bank accounts or filing liens on property.

You break this down into different kinds of categories of issues. If we’re talking about spousal support or child custody matters, the court has a wide degree of options as to what it could do. It could be two different judges and the two different judges could do something totally different sometimes. However, both would be permissible and both would be held up on appeal.

Now when it comes to certain things with regards to property division or child support, the court generally does not have as many options or what we call discretion to go out and do what they think is appropriate. For example, with the child support formula, applying child support, you plug in the numbers and outcomes what the person should be paying. The court can deviate from that in extraordinary circumstances, but I just don’t see that happening that much.

Generally speaking, the court’s going to go with what the child support formula says. The same thing comes with property division. As we’ve talked about this in another article, everything is supposed to be split evenly. Now, one of the core things that the court is going to do though, when it comes to properties, they’re going to assess the property and determine what the values are and different people could have different opinions about the value of a piece of property.

For example, with real estate, two appraisers could value the same piece of property in two different ways. When this happens, it’s up to the judge to decide what the value is. When it comes to things like spousal support for example, there are 20 different factors that the court is going to look at. We haven’t gotten into a whole lot of details about these 20 factors, but the court has what we call a wide degree of discretion as to whether to award it and as to whether it should be in any particular amount.

The same thing with child custody matters. The court has a broad range of things that it can do in terms of child custody matters. Those are really the two differences and that’s one of the things that you should take into account when you’re thinking about your family court case. You need to be thinking about what are going to be your risks depending on the type of issue. It’s very important to know where your judge stands on those issues as well before you go into court. The reason is because there are some judges that in almost every instance, pretty much going to do a certain thing.

When it comes to things like spousal support or child custody, there are other judges who are going to do it in a completely different way based on the same set of facts. This is one of the things that you always have to take into account. In terms of whether the court can do a wide array of things in a given situation or whether the judge is mandated to do a particular thing.

This basically encompasses when it comes to decision making for the judge as to what he or she thinks is appropriate. The point you want to take from this article today is for some things the court has a lot more discretion as to what it does and does not do. In other instances, it’s much more narrow. Just remember some of these things we talked about, so when it’s time to go to court, you can be better prepared.

What If I Brought Property Into The Marriage?

Separate property is also any kind of property that you bring into the marriage. For example, let’s say you have guns or you have jewelry. Anything tangible that you bring into the marriage is going to be considered separate property. Also, separate property could be gifts that you receive while you and your spouse were together. Let’s say you get some Christmas gifts from your parents or from your kids or whoever, that’s going to be considered to be your separate property.

What About Separate Property That Takes on Aspects of Marital Property?

When you have separate property that takes on aspects of marital property, this is where it can become tricky. For example, if you have a bank account and that bank account stays in your separate name, but marital money is going into that same account, then that becomes to a large extent, marital property. You have to be very careful. Even if your name is on a particular account, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be considered to be your separate property. The most common question I get when it comes to marital property is “Because my name is on it solely, does that mean that it is my separate property?”. The answer to that is generally no. It’s not going to be your separate property unless certain conditions have been met. For example, let’s say that you have a bank account that you came into the marriage with. Let’s say you don’t put any kind of money in it at all once married. It just gains interest for example. Even a savings account or money market accounts or anything like that and none of the money that you’re currently earning is going into the account once you were married. In that event, that would generally be considered to be your separate property. Those are some of the basics as to what separate property is. I just wanted to go over some of these details of it, so that you are better prepared in this subject when the time comes.

There are six basic types of fault based grounds for divorce in West Virginia. Some are more common than others. I’m going to go down from the most common to the least common types of fault based grounds for divorce. You can allege both the fault based grounds and a non-fault based grounds for divorce in West Virginia. Your non-fault grounds for divorce are irreconcilable differences and separate and apart for a year.

Now, the most common types of fault based grounds for divorce is cruel and inhuman treatment. That means that if there’s some cruelty going on in the relationship and you meet the statutory definition of cruel and inhuman treatment and it’s on a significant level, it’s persistent, that sort of thing, then you might have a reason for that as a fault based grounds for divorce.

The other type of grounds for divorce could be adultery. Now it’s really tricky with adultery because a lot of times when people were going through a divorce, they sometimes have reconciled and they’ve gotten back together. What that means is if somebody commits an act with a person outside of the marriage, then that can be grounds for adultery. Now the tricky part is, in the event that the people reconcile, that is a legal defense to being able to raise adultery in the marriage. If you do what we call the marital act after somebody has been placed on notice about the adultery, then that gets rid of it as a claim. That’s one thing that you will also always have to take into account.

The two major ones are cruel and inhuman treatment and adultery. Those are the ones that I see over and over again in divorce cases. Now the next four we are going to discuss are somewhat less frequent, but I have seen them from time to time.

One fault based grounds is being a habitual user of alcohol or narcotics. If you’re a habitual drug user or you’re getting drunk all the time, then the spouse could potentially go after you for that in a divorce. The next type is abandonment.  This is another grounds for divorce, but it has to be for a period of longer than six months.

Another basic type of fault based grounds for divorce is if the person is committing a felony while married. That’s another grounds for a fault based divorce as well. One I will mention, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this actually used as a grounds for divorce, but I am speaking about permanent and incurable insanity.

Those we discussed Today are the six fault based grounds for divorce in West Virginia. Some are more common than others. You may want to decide if want to raise these grounds for divorce in court or not. It’s sort of a catchall at the end and sometimes these grounds can be used as a reason for somebody being awarded for example, alimony. That’s really the only way that it’s going to be a factor. It’s not supposed to be a factor when it comes to property division though it could be in a way if it goes to the credibility of person. Hopefully you’re more informed on the basic types of grounds for divorce in West Virginia.

What Are Some of The Benefits of Seeking Counseling?

One of the benefits of having a counselor to talk to is you’re not going to have to worry about them going and blabbing about what’s going on in your divorce case. The other benefit to it is that it’s going to help you gain the skills that you need when it comes to managing a super stressful time in your life. There’s going to be some collateral benefits such as being able to deal with what you’re going through when it comes to the current relationships with your children. It’s going to help you deal with everything that you’re going through when it comes to the court process. I think the other benefit is that it’s going to help you keep everything in perspective. One of the most important things you need to do when going through a divorce is to make sure you’re keeping a proper perspective on everything, whether it’s finances, whether it’s your long term needs versus your short term needs. All of these things are very important when it comes to a divorce. To summarize everything for you, it’s very important that you go and at least talk with a counselor prior to or during the divorce process. This will help you all the way around.

Is It Alright To Post Something If I Blocked My Ex?

There’s a very good chance that somebody out there has the potential to be taking some kind of screenshot of what you posted. It’s something that comes up a lot. Clients will say to me that they unfriended all of these people that are associated with spouse or former spouse.  However, the problem is situations where you don’t account for every single person out there. I’ve also seen an issue sometimes where the passwords are floating around out there. You might have unfriended or blocked other people out there, but at the same time, there could be someone who still has access to your account. My next piece of advice to you is to make sure that you post nothing controversial at all. Anytime you go to post something, you need to ask yourself one fundamental question, could this come back and bite me in some way? Not whether it probably would, but just think, is this in any way controversial?

What About If I Post Something That Has Nothing To Do With Ex?

I’m talking about things even as petty as, for example, political posts. You might not think that that has any impact on your case, but do you know the politics of the judge who’s going to be hearing the case? Do you know the politics of other people who might be potential witnesses or who might be going onto your social media account? Stay away from anything at all that’s controversial. Those are some basic tips when it comes to social media. You have to be very careful when you’re posting anything. Like we spoke about, your best bet is to just completely stay off shortly before you filed for divorce throughout the entire action. Some people use social media as therapy. I’ve seen that and I get that, but it’s one of those situations where you need to make sure that you are protecting your best financial interests and the interests of your kids. If kids are involved, then make sure posts are things that are going to be positive. What you can also do too is if you feel like you need to talk to somebody and if you’re the type of person that’s using social media as therapy, just get a therapist. That’s the best advice I can give you. That pretty much wraps up some basic advice when it comes to social media and your West Virginia divorce.

What Happens When a Spouse Doesn’t Pay on The Debt They Were Responsible For?

We had talked before a little bit about contempt of court and that’s your remedy in the event that the other person doesn’t pay on the debt pursuant to a divorce order. If your former spouse is ordered to make a credit card payment and they don’t pay on it, what happens then is that you can take them to court for what’s called contempt of court. However, that’s not going to solve all of your problems. Since your credit’s going to get dinged, it’s important to handle the matter as soon as possible. It’s very important that you take into account which spouse is responsible for what debts in a case of a divorce. You really need to think about these things if you are trying to come to an agreement with the other spouse.

If you come to an agreement, you need to make sure that, number one, you need to know if you are going to have the other person responsible for a joint debt or even a debt solely in one of your names. You also need to understand the possibility that it could come back to haunt you. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the worst thing in the world for you to have that person responsible for that debt. You just need to understand what the risks are. A court, especially in particular a family court in West Virginia, cannot take debt out of one person’s name and put it in the other. Now, one thing that people do a lot when it comes to this type of debt is refinance and the court may say it has to be done within a certain amount of time. That’s something that’s common in a divorce order.

Whether it’s the house, the home mortgage, a car or something else, it could be in the order that the person has to make a reasonable effort to refinance the debt within a certain amount of time. You really need to take that into account when you’re talking with the other spouse. Now that you know the family court in West Virginia is not going to be able to transfer debt from one of the spouse’s name to another. It’s something you really need to think about when you’re trying to come up with an agreement or when you’re presenting your case to the judge. These are some of the things to consider and think about when it comes to West Virginia divorced and the debt between spouses.