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There are all sorts of issues that are going to be dealt with in a West Virginia divorce. There may or may not be children involved. You might be dealing with property division or alimony. Deciding whether there’s a fault for the divorce. Determining what the grounds are for the divorce. There are all sorts of issues that are going to be considered. Sometimes people can reach a complete agreement, and we’ve covered that in other discussions. What we’re specifically talking about today is whether you can enter into partial agreements. This happens more times than you would think.

To begin, let’s say the two people can agree on, for example, a property division. You can agree on property, and let’s say you can agree on whether there should be any spousal support. However, you can’t agree on child custody. What you can do is, you can come to an agreement on those issues, but reserve the issue of who gets the kids and when. It may also be that you agree on the children, but there are issues concerning property division. I can tell you that usually, issues regarding the property are a little bit easier to resolve because the laws governing it are a little bit more straight forward, and there’s not a whole lot of discretion. Those sorts of issues are easier than, for example, spousal support or child custody.

So, as you can see what people do oftentimes is, they’ll reach an agreement on one topic, but not others. Judges are usually very good about going along with that. They will hear partial issues and they will hear, let’s say a partial agreement on one thing, and then hear what the people have to say on other issues. So that’s something that happens quite frequently. I think it’s been very rare where I’ve seen a judge that does not allow that, but you must get an idea as to what the preferences are for the judge. So most judges will go along with it, but some will not in some instances.

So keep this in mind. You may or may not want to do this, but often it is helpful to be able to resolve things outside of court as much as possible. It can mean you’re going to be spending less time in court. Also, if you have an attorney there’s going to be fewer attorney fees involved. So often it’s very, very helpful.

So, that consists of today’s topic. If you have any questions at all, feel free to give me at (304) 720 4412. You can also email me at chris@prittlaw.com. Have a good day!

A very common thing that happens is sometimes two people will be going through a divorce and the holidays will be coming up. In many instances, especially when divorces are filed at the end of the year, or people are just getting their paperwork together and they’re going to be filing in the new year, you have a lot of issues that come up with regards to the holidays. It could be other holidays too, but it most often happens at the end of the year, near Thanksgiving and Christmas, and so forth. This common issue is, what do you do about the holidays?

Now, I can tell you that in most instances, the court will not address things of that sort on an emergency basis. The reason for that is because it’s not an emergency. It may seem very, very important to you, and it probably does cause a lot of heartache in your life, but at the same time, compared to a lot of other things that the court system is addressing, this is down low on the priority list. They’re dealing with things such as domestic violence petitions and all sorts of things that are going to take priority. Now, that’s not to say that a court won’t take something up on an emergency basis, but in my experience, they typically do not do that.

The number one thing you can do is try to negotiate with the person to work out some sort of agreement. If you can work out an agreement with the other person, that would be great, and then you just work together. That’s how most people address those things. What you’re going to be looking at, is you’re going to be looking at family traditions. You’re going to be looking at what is going to be most convenient and most workable for both of you.

There are other things that you can do in these instances. Sometimes what you can do is if a divorce is filed, the court, in some instances, and it really depends on the judge, is if you send in a motion for temporary relief the court may or may not address it. That’s highly based on the judge. Sometimes if you send in a proposed order and along with a motion for temporary relief saying, “I would like to get the kids on these days,” and the other person says, “I want that person to have the child or children on those days,” sometimes the judge will sign the order without a hearing. I’ve found that is less likely to happen than some other things. So it just is based on the circumstances.

So that’s really what your two options are, is you either try to work it out or you send something to the judge and the judge may or may not address it. The way to avoid all of this of course is to file in the new year, and that’s what many people do. However, sometimes it is helpful to get the ball rolling. Then if things can’t be worked out when it comes to holidays, people just say, “Well, I’ll just deal with it.”

So that consists of today’s topic. If you have any questions at all, feel free to give me at (304) 720 4412. You can also email me at chris@prittlaw.com. Have a good day!

Department of Health and Human Resources adoptions, or DHHR adoptions, are ones in which there has been an abuse and neglect proceeding. After there is an abuse and neglect proceeding, you often have two parents who have had their parental rights terminated or they will relinquish their rights. When they relinquish their rights this means they agree to give up their rights.

The other type of adoption is what we call either a stepparent adoption or a guardianship adoption. There is a little bit of a difference between the two. Stepparent adoptions are ones in which you may have a stepparent who steps in to adopt a child. Another example may be the mother or the father are out of the picture, the parents do not want to be involved in the child’s life, or they may just want to relinquish their rights. That would be another example of this type of adoption. One last example could be, let’s say, the parents cannot be found and they haven’t been involved in the child’s life for years. This would also be a type of stepparent adoption.

A guardianship adoption is one where you have two people who have guardianship over a child. This means they have the basic legal rights over the child or the children, but at the same time, the parental rights of the biological parents have not been terminated. Those two people could, under certain circumstances, go ahead and adopt the child. The easiest way for that to happen is for the parents to sign over their parental rights. Alternatively, you could have a contested adoption as well.

There is one other key difference between DHHR adoptions and adoptions that are involving either a stepparent or a guardianship situation. This is, during DHHR adoptions the Department of Health and Human Resources will often pay your legal fees if there has been some sort of abuse, neglect, a petition filed, and/or somebody’s rights have been terminated.

In many instances, if you are going through the adoption process and the Department of Health and Human Resources has never been involved, then they are most likely not going to get involved in the adoption proceedings whatsoever. That is very, very common in West Virginia. We’ve done a lot of those kinds of adoptions over the years in particular involving stepparents. However, the court will in some instances bring in the Department of Health and Human Resources. They will appoint a guardian ad litem, which is a person who is charged with overseeing and speaking with the child. They will also make sure that everything is consistent with the best interest of the child that may or may not happen. It’s largely based on the circumstances.

Those are some key differences between DHHR adoptions and private party adoptions that involve either guardianships or stepparents. If you have any questions at all feel free to give me a call at (304) 720 4412. You can also send me an email at chris@prittlaw.com.

Now, when a domestic violence petition has been filed oftentimes the spouse who filed will be awarded custody if awarded. Plus, the same person is going to get likely some child support awarded on a temporary basis. It’s important that one thinks about hiring an attorney if possible. Oftentimes an attorney may be wise because there is a lot at stake when it comes to these domestic violence petitions.

Some temporary alimony can be set when it comes to these domestic violence petitions as well. The other thing that the court can do in the event that a domestic violence petition is awarded is they can grant the house to the person who filed the petition. They can grant automobiles to the person as well. However, the most important thing the courts will do is make sure the other person is ordered to stay away. Now, when that happens and children are involved oftentimes visitation between the child and the responding parent is going to be supervised. There’s really a lot at stake when it comes to these domestic violence petitions and they are very serious so it is wise to have an attorney if possible.

What happens at that point is oftentimes they have to file to get permission from the court to file an amended pleading. It’s really not that difficult most of the time if there’s an attorney on the other side. Sometimes the attorney will cooperate and they’ll actually just agree to allow it most of the time because it’s usually just not worth the fight over whether you should be able to do one thing or not. Based on the rules under most circumstances, one does have to get permission from the court to file an amended pleading. However, at the same time, it’s usually not that big of a deal with the other party. Especially if they get them to do an agreed order. At that point you filed the amended pleading.

That’s typically what happens after one has hired an attorney after the filings already have been done. What usually needs to happen when an attorney comes on after the filings is that the attorney is going to have to get caught up on everything. The attorney should know as much as humanly possible about the filings and case. If the attorney agrees not to amend the filings, then it’s probably going to save some money because the attorney is not going to have to go down to the courthouse and dig up a bunch of files.

Another thing quite possibly that could happen as well is the attorney cooperates with the other attorney to get copies. However, that’s going to be an added cost as well. If one wants to hire an attorney at the last minute, oftentimes potential scheduling issues for attorneys could occur. Oftentimes their hearings are set sometimes months ahead and they quite possibly could have a hearing that’s scheduled on that particular day that the people being divorced have their hearing set. Some judges have a policy they’re generally going to do what is called a continuance, but some judges will not delay the case just because your attorney is with another case that day. If one does decide they are going to hire an attorney after they already filed for their West Virginia divorce, then it’s better to do it sooner rather than later because this could avoid a lot of the potential issues versus waiting to the last minute.

Another situation is when there is a loan associated with the vehicle. For example, let’s say that one bought a new vehicle prior to the marriage. If they put almost nothing down and took out a loan of let’s say in the amount of about $30,000 and that loan was paid down over the course of the marriage, such that by the time you get to the point where you’re separating, the $30,000 loan is paid off. What will happen in that instance, the equity that has been built up in the vehicle by the pay down in the loan could be considered to be marital. That’s one thing that happens sometimes.

What will happen is that’s going to go into the equation when it comes to a property distribution that doesn’t necessarily mean one person is going to have to pay the other person 15,000. The point of it though is that that’s going to be something that is factored into the equitable distribution. If the spouse is building up debt with a vehicle or even the other forms of debt as well like credit cards, mortgages, anything like that, then it can in some instances have a marital component. This is important to know when trying to figure out a fair solution that is going to be consistent with West Virginia law.

The idea behind it is to hold one over until they get to a final order. Another type of order in every single divorce case is going to be a final order that resolves the case. Unlike the temporary order which is dealing with things on a temporary basis, the final order is going to be an order that finally resolves all of the issues such as child support, child custody, spousal support and property division. All of those things are going to be covered in a final order.

One of the key differences between a final order and a temporary order is that the temporary order is generally not able to be appealed. The final order is going to be allowed to be appealed. Unless there’s a very exceptional circumstance, one is going to have to wait until they get their final order before they attempt to do any kind of appeals or to go to a higher court.

Now, the last type of order and less common is the bifurcated divorce order and this one in which the court will actually decide on a number of issues at a later time. However, at the same time, the court will go ahead and divorce the people who are involved in the case. One could totally be divorced, but things like child support, child custody, decision-making and property division will be dealt with on a different day. The bifurcated divorce order is a little less common than the others, but does happen.

Now, sometimes the judges will require both of you and the attorneys assigned to actually sign the divorce order or the dismissal order. Depending on the judge, they’ll just allow the attorneys to sign on the spouse’s behalf. It’s really based on the circumstances and oftentimes up to the judge. Most of the time, the spouse’s divorcing will not be required to go into court to actually get the dismissal done. However, it is possible that the judge may require they actually go in and explain why they’re willing to not go through with the divorce. Whether it’s a good idea to actually dismiss the case is a totally separate subject. There are a number of reasons why one wouldn’t want to do it. One of the main considerations is that both of the spouse’s have put in a lot of money into actually getting the divorce already.

If they have put in attorney fees, then it’s a lot of money that they’re likely not going to get back. The other thing that could have an impact is if in the event that they want to get a divorce in the future, there’s going to be a different date of separation. One needs to know that other facts and circumstances are going to change by the time they would actually get around to divorcing. If the spouse’s are working without an attorney, then it might just be a matter of calling up the court. However, one representing themselves is less likely that they’re going to be able to do it without a hearing though, but it is possible.

It might be in the court order or it might be in the actual parenting plan. A court order is going to specifically reference everything that one is going to have access to. Unless there’s a very good reason why one should not have access to their child’s school records, generally all parents are allowed. Sometimes schools for whatever reason will not allow a parent to have access to for example, school records. They are of the belief that somehow, if one person’s the custodial parent, then that means the other person does not have access to the records. The general rule is that one is going to have access to these.

It’s always a good idea to make sure your attorney makes sure that the parenting plan or court order specifically states that both parents have equal access to the records. if the other person is the non-custodial parent and the other is the main parent, in West Virginia, both parents generally have rights to those records. Both parents should have equal access to any kind of records, whether the child is primary living with them or not. If there is a reason why one parent may not be allowed to have access to their child’s records after the divorce, then the court will address that and your attorney can address that issue as well if it comes to that point.

One will oftentimes find that it’s standard language in the order that both people are going to have equal access to any kind of medical records. When it comes to actual medical records involving their children, the general rule is that both people are going to have access to those records. One example where one may need their child’s medical records would be at the pediatrician’s office. If one was denied access, then one can have their court order in hand and for the most part it should state that one has a right to access those records. However, there are some instances where perhaps under some limited circumstances a parent may not have access to the children’s medical records. In some states, sometimes it’s not a given that one will have access to the records.

In West Virginia though, the general rule of thumb is that both people are going to have access because in West Virginia, it’s what is called a shared parenting state. This simply means in terms of major decisions, access to records, that sort of thing, unless there’s a very compelling reason, both parents are going to have access to that. When they say shared parenting that doesn’t necessarily mean that one parent is going to get an equal amount of time with the children.  Sometimes one will have an equal amount of time and other times one won’t, but regardless of whether one has any amount of time at all, the general rule of thumb and it should be specifically stated in the order is that both parents are going to have access to their children’s medical records. This is an important thing to know.