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Once you’re going through the divorce most retirement plans will not allow you to change beneficiaries and so forth. You don’t want to do that anyway. It wouldn’t necessarily look good in front of the court. The same thing goes for insurance policies. Once the court has made a final ruling, and let’s say that there’s nothing that says that you have to include the other person listed as the beneficiary on your retirement accounts. Let’s say you’ve got two people and they made about the same amount of money. The retirement accounts are completely separated and they’re equal, and there are no qualified domestic relations orders that are going to have to be drafted. One of the things that you’ll need to do at that point unless it’s otherwise specified in an agreement or an order, is you’ll need to change the beneficiaries. It’s not necessarily automatic based on the particular plan that you’re signed up for. Whether it’s an insurance plan or a retirement plan.

What you’ll need to do is you’ll need to start digging up whatever the phone number is for the insurance company or the retirement account. You’ll need to go through with them as to what their requirements are for changing the beneficiaries. It might be really simple or it might be a little bit more complicated. You need to make sure you do that soon because you certainly don’t want something to happen to you after the divorce, but if something does you want to make sure all of that is consistent with what you want. So you would call them and ask for the information that you need to change the beneficiaries.

The reason I’m bringing this up is that I’ve had people assume that just because they’ve gone through a divorce that all of that is going to be changed. That’s not necessarily the case. In many instances, you have to go through a process to change your beneficiaries. Let’s say that you want to take your wife or your husband off, and you want to include your children or somebody else. It’s important that you go ahead and do that and you get started on it soon after the divorce has been completed.

That consists of today’s topic. If you have any questions at all, feel free to give us a call at (304) 720 4412 or email us at chris@prittlaw.com.

Hello everyone. It’s Chris, Pritt back again with a new topic in West Virginia divorce. Today, we’re going to be talking about whether you should be changing up any kind of medical powers of attorney or living wills if you were going through a divorce.

I’m talking about a situation where you have named your spouse on your living will or as your medical power of attorney. So let’s be clear about what those things are. Those are documents that will allow the person to make certain medical decisions on your behalf if you cannot make those decisions for yourself. So at our office, we draft what’s known as a combined medical power of attorney and living well. It talks about what you want to see happen in the event something happens it allows that person to make decisions for you when it comes to medical things.

One of the things that you need to know though, is that you must go ahead and get rid of that medical power of attorney living will if you were going through a divorce because you don’t want to have a situation where that person is making those sorts of decisions for you. You want someone in that position that your trust. It’s somebody who you want making those kinds of decisions for you to make sure it’s abundantly clear to the medical community what you’re wanting to do. It’s important to get those things changed up. It happens sometimes such that people will not change those things up and in the end, there are ways around it.

If it’s your former spouse, it’s going to be a red flag to people in the medical community. There are potential ways you can get around the fact that that person holds the medical power of attorney or the living will. However, it’s something that you want to avoid if at all possible. It would certainly be a cost for somebody to try to get involved with that. It might require an attorney to deal with that situation. You don’t want to be in a situation where somebody is having to take your spouse to court to deal with the medical power of attorney or living will that they should not have based on the circumstances. So, I think that’s a good summation of what you should do. Just remember when you’re going through a divorce and you have one of those It’s a pretty good idea to go ahead and get that redone.

That consists of today’s topic. If you have any questions at all, feel free to give us a call at (304) 720 4412 or email us at chris@prittlaw.com.

A power of attorney is a document that allows another person to act on your behalf. Generally speaking, it is up to the various institution that you’re dealing with whether they are going to acknowledge it. For example, sometimes a bank has its forms that they require you to use before you do anything and sometimes there are no requirements. They’ll just take a generally applied power of attorney that an attorney’s office or somebody has drafted to allow you to act on behalf of another person or for them to act on behalf of you.

A question I get sometimes is what happens after the divorce? Do I have to worry about any kind of powers of attorney that are out there? The answer to that is yes, you do. It’s important that once you have gone through the divorce process if you think that’s an issue, you need to go ahead and change your powers of attorney. The reason for that is that let’s say you’ve got a spouse that’s named on it, and they’re allowed to go and act on your behalf.

One key feature of a power of attorney though, is that with it comes what we call fiduciary responsibilities. What that means is the person cannot have a power of attorney and just act and do whatever they want. The purpose of that is to act in the best interest of the person for which they have the power of attorney. You can’t just take a power of attorney that you have for somebody and use that as a reason to just totally drain their bank account. In other words, you are in a position of trust when you have that. However, it does not stop a lot of damage from being done. If a power of attorney has been granted and they rip you off in the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars. They just take it out of your bank account and they might be permitted to do that. At the same time, you could be in a situation where you have no recourse. You might be able to sue them or let’s say they might be prosecuted, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be able to get your money back. You’ll get a judgment against them. There might be restitution that they have to pay you back, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are going to get your money back.

So that’s why you must go ahead and change up all of your powers of attorney and other similar documents. Whether it’s at a bank or other places, you don’t want to have to worry about that going into the future. Now, if you completely trust the person that’s fine, but in the context of divorce, you’re probably not going to put a whole lot of trust in your soon to be former spouse.

That consists of today’s topic. If you have any questions at all, feel free to give us a call at (304) 720 4412 or email us at chris@prittlaw.com.

One of the most common questions I get is what do we need to have in the agreement? One of the pitfalls of cases is that not everything is anticipated in the agreement. That happens quite a bit when people are representing themselves. You have to make sure that everything is disclosed and you need to make sure you cover all of the potential issues that need to be addressed. That includes how all property is going to be divided. When I say all property, I mean, all property. It needs to be listed out in terms of who gets the separate property, who gets set various accounts, and other property. All of that should be in the property settlement agreement.

If there is going to be alimony, how much that is going to be, and for what duration. That also needs to be in any kind of property settlement agreement. Also, if any debts are going to be responsible for what debts should be included. Often it’s very customary for a parenting plan to be a separate document though. It’s not necessarily required that it be a separate document, but it’s customary. In that parenting plan, you need to address everything, everything you can think of about who gets the kids, who get them on holidays, weekends, and special occasions. Furthermore, if there’s going to be child support you need to include that amount. Now, what the courts typically do is they will go ahead and run the child support formula in most instances. They’ll say, okay, this is the amount that would have to be paid if there was no agreement. Once that is stated on the record the courts typically ask the person, do you still want to go along with this agreement? Most people say yes.

You also need to have in the property settlement agreement a list of individual pieces of property, or there can be an agreement on that at some future point in time. People will agree that certain pieces of property are going to be divided, but it needs to be specified in there that this agreement does not cover items of personal property. So that’s something else that needs to be in there.

Often certain issues may be reserved for the future. So for example, let’s say that somebody has to refinance within a reasonable amount of time. That sort of language might be sort of left up in the air as to a date by which it needs to be refinanced. Sometimes it’s preferable to have a specific date in thereby which any kind of mortgage or car loans and so forth need to be refinanced. Of course, things like cars and such need to be referenced in the property settlement agreement.

That consists of today’s topic. If you have any questions at all, feel free to give us a call at (304) 720 4412 or email us at chris@prittlaw.com.

The answer to the first part of that question is yes at any point during your marriage, you can change your will, as long as certain basic requirements are met. So you can change your will at any point before getting divorced. It can be right at the beginning, during, or after. It is certainly important to go ahead and do that as soon as you possibly can. A lot of times people will do that after the divorce, but you certainly are not limited to that. One thing to note though is let’s say you’re going through a divorce and you die right in the middle, your spouse still may able to claim what’s known as an elective share.

An elective share is an interest that you have in a particular state. So even if a person is completely excluded from the person’s will, if they are the spouse based on certain measurements over time, they’re allowed to acquire more and more of that person’s estate. So that’s the reason it’s important when you’re going through a divorce to get a new will done because even if you have a will in place, the person can still go after your estate.

One of the important things that you have to remember though, is that if you’re going to be changing the will or revoking the will, the same formalities that are required for a will are required again to revoke it or to get a new will put in place. For example, some of those basic things that you need to have for any kind of will are a witness’s signature. Witnesses that meet certain threshold requirements signed in front of a notary.

Alternatively, you could have what’s known as a holographic will. A holographic will is a will that is completely and written out by hand. However, if you don’t have the basic requirements met, then the old will is still going to be put in place. So you need to always remember if you’re going to be changing your will make sure you do it right. Often it’s a good idea to have that done through an attorney’s office through it’s certainly not required.

That consists of today’s topic. If you have any questions at all, feel free to give us a call at (304) 720 4412 or email us at chris@prittlaw.com.

I can tell you that the short answer to that is no. In West Virginia, we do not have common-law marriages. Let’s first talk though about what a common-law marriage is. A common law marriage is recognized in some jurisdictions, and it basically says that if you’re living together and you’re together for all practical purposes, as husband and wife, certain rights and responsibilities can come from that. So that’s generally what it might be considered in some other states and jurisdictions. We in West Virginia though do not recognize that. However, that does not necessarily mean that what could be almost considered a common-law marriage for all practical purposes, would not have an impact when it comes to several issues that you sometimes see in family court.

One situation that we’ve talked about in a prior video is de facto marriages. This comes into play basically if two people are living together. It can have an impact on spousal support and whether somebody can have it modified based on the existence of a de facto marriage. The other thing that can have an impact in situations where it might be something similar to a common-law marriage is other areas is child custody. Let’s say you have two people who are living together. They’re together for all practical purposes. That can certainly have an impact when it comes to parenting. A court is probably going to look at that situation a lot differently than a situation where let’s say that you have a father or a mother who has been exclusively taking care of a child over an extended period.So let’s say the father or mother hasn’t been in the picture for years for whatever reason. That is going to be looked at a lot differently than let’s say two people who have been cohabitating together with the child for an extended amount of time. From that also comes child support because one thing that is going to happen when two people break up and they have a child together is somebody is probably going to be on the hook for child support. If the two people have been living together then it’s more likely that the two people are going to end up in a child custody fight. If that’s the case, it’s going to be looked at a lot differently in that situation.

Something that a court might also consider, though it doesn’t apply to family court, is if you have two people who have been living together for all practical purposes, but let’s say that they are going their separate ways and they need to divide their property. Now the family court in that situation is not going to have jurisdiction over their property. However, at the same time, if somebody files a claim in circuit court to divide the property the family court could factor in whether the people have been living together as for all practical purposes. They are going to be looking at that because it could impact the evidence as to how a particular piece of property is going to be titled.

So those are a few situations where the court could look at two people living together for all practical purposes, like husband and wife, but not husband and wife. This consists of today’s topic. If you have any questions at all, feel free to give us a call at (304) 720 4412 or email us at chris@prittlaw.com.

A de facto marriage is only relevant and applied under West Virginia law in really one situation. That’s when somebody is attempting to modify an award of spousal support. So a defacto marriage is a marriage. Let’s say you have a couple that is living together. They share bills, a bank account, and so forth. Several factors are considered to determine whether something is a de facto marriage. Under the law, it comes up in a situation where one of the spouses has been awarded alimony. Now it depends on the type of alimony as to whether the definition of de facto marriage could be applied. So what people will oftentimes do is somebody will file for a reduction in the alimony that they have to pay. One of the reasons that they might do that is the existence of a defective marriage. Let’s say their spouse is cohabitating with another person with whom they are in a relationship they’re sharing bills, they’re sharing a bank account, and so forth. What they will do is they will claim as a basis for modifying the spousal support is the existence of a defective marriage.

Now, whether that will be awarded in terms of a reduction of the alimony is going to be based on what number one, whether you can prove the existence of a defective marriage. If you can prove that then the next thing that you have to take a look at is the type of alimony that has been awarded. If there’s been an award of rehabilitative alimony, or in an award of lump sum alimony, if you’re not going to be able to modify it. However, you are going to be able to modify it if you prove it under certain circumstances, and you were able to establish some other form of alimony, such as permanent alimony. Now the word permanent is a little bit of a misnomer in the law in West Virginia when it comes to that. Regardless if it’s an award of alimony that is not rehabilitative or lump sum, then it might be able to be modified in some way upon proving the existence of a de facto marriage. It’s a specific term that’s used in a specific situation under West Virginia law, but you must have a good understanding of what that word means before attempting to file for a modification of any kind.

That consists of today’s topic. If you have any questions at all, feel free to give us a call at (304) 720 4412 or email us at chris@prittlaw.com.

Sometimes somebody will come to me and they will talk about how things went wrong in court. They might’ve had an attorney or they might not have had an attorney. When I look into the case, one of the things that I often find is that they have said things that are completely inappropriate to the judge, or things that are inappropriate to say in court. Examples of this would be using disrespectful language to the judge or speaking out loud in court when they’re not supposed to be talking. Those are things that seem to irk the judges.

Often something else that you can do that can hurt your case is when you’re saying things in front of the children that might be construed as inappropriate. Everything you need to be doing when you’re interacting with your soon to be former spouse should be geared around how is something going to look in court? It oftentimes comes back to bite people. Whenever they’re saying things that are going to be considered inappropriate or saying something that could be borderline considered to be a threat. Sometimes people say things that could be taken out of context and it could be considered to be a threat or construed in that way even though the intention wasn’t there. Also, saying things that might tend to alienate a child from the other parent often comes up in court.

Something that you always need to be aware of is what you’re saying to your soon to be former spouse could be recorded. I have seen it come up time and time again, and it’s even worse if you’re texting because texting things that could be considered improper can get you in trouble. Also, one of the things that you always have to take into account in these cases is the fact that if somebody is dishing it out to you, it’s human nature to want to dish it back in many instances. However, that’s not necessarily in your favor because you might have a great case, but at the same time, the court could look at both of you conclude that both of you are terrible people, irresponsible, and so forth. Because of that, the judge might split the difference on some things when in reality, the judge might not have split the difference because the judge might’ve favored your case or your side of things if they hadn’t thought you were saying inappropriate things.

So, just think about things before you speak and think about your case. It’s important you do so. Make sure you don’t say anything disrespectful or inappropriate to your soon to be former spouse or to the judge. Also, don’t say anything inappropriate around the children. This consists of today’s topic. If you have any questions at all, feel free to give us a call at (304) 720 4412 or email us at chris@prittlaw.com.

I commonly get this question when somebody has just recently moved to West Virginia, or they are thinking about moving to West Virginia. It’s not going to matter whether the person is coming with their spouse or not. It’s gonna come down to you, a few dates or questions being answered. So, let’s say that somebody has moved from Ohio to West Virginia, and they are with their spouse. If they were married in West Virginia, they are going to be able to get a divorce in West Virginia. However, if they have just moved to West Virginia and they were not married in West Virginia, then the rules are a little bit different. If you were not married in West Virginia and you’ve just recently moved here, then you have to wait a year before pursuing a divorce.

For another situation let’s say that you have just recently moved to West Virginia and you were married in West Virginia. You can certainly file, but at that point, you also have to try to get what we call personal jurisdiction over your soon to be former spouse. In some situations, you won’t be able to get a divorce in West Virginia or deal with a lot of property issues because you cannot get proper service on that person. We’ve gone over that in other articles about how you get proper service and it’s a huge issue that you’re going to have to deal with in some way.

That’s the basics about what happens when you have just recently moved to West Virginia and you’re wanting to know whether you can get a divorce in the state. This consists of today’s topic. If you have any questions at all, feel free to give us a call at (304) 720 4412 or email us at chris@prittlaw.com.

Let’s say you have a couple who has been cohabitating together. They have joint bank accounts, property that they bought together, and so forth. This often happens when people are living together and they even might have kids. It will sometimes come up in the family court. It’s a situation where the family court is faced with the question, can we divide this property? The answer to that question is generally no. If you have two people who are not married and they want to go into family court and have the court divide property, the family court is not going to do that. They’re not going to entertain that. What has to happen if you’re going to do that at this time, unfortunately, is you would have to file a separate action in the circuit court. So the family court would be without jurisdiction.

It’s really unfortunate that the law is set up that way because family courts are used to dealing with issues such as how to divide the property. However, there’s no way to do it. You would have to go and file something in the circuit court. So you could have a situation where you have two people living together and they have children together but the family court is totally and completely without the authority to deal with property issues.

Let’s say that you have a situation where two people were living together prior to marriage then they go get married. The property has been tangled in some way. So for example, you have a property where it was placed in a joint name. In that situation, the property has been acquired while the parties were married and one person’s name was added on to the other person’s account. In that situation, the court would have the authority to deal with it. So it matters when the person’s name is added to the property because, at that point, the family court would have the authority to deal with that particular piece of property if it’s been jointly titled.

So that consists of today’s topic. If you have any questions at all, feel free to give us a call at (304) 720 4412 or email us at chris@prittlaw.com.