Divorce law is probably the most difficult, the most emotional and the most vast genre of all the law.
When someone discusses divorce law the first question asked is what is divorce and how does it work?
The definition of divorce is the major separation of a monogamous relationship between a couple who have entered into marriage (civil marriage, customary marriage and/or civil union).
When a person decides that they want a divorce, the first thing they do is Google divorce attorney. What they should be doing is asking themselves is this really what they want, and if so have they spoken to their spouse?
What is most common about all divorces is that the lack of communication generally is the instigator for the breakdown of the marriage.
When considering a divorce you would have to take into consideration the following:
Reasons for Divorce;
The Minor/ dependent Children;
primary residence and contact;
the type of marriage you entered; and
the separation of assets and liabilities in terms of your marital regime.
REASONS FOR DIVORCE
There are only three types of grounds for divorce, namely:
- INCARCERATION: this means that one of the spouse members has been convicted of an offense and has been sentenced to imprisonment for a certain amount of time;
- MENTAL INCAPACITY: this means that one of the spouses has suffered a mental injury and can no longer act by themselves; and
- IRRETRIEVABLE BREAKDOWN OF THE MARRIAGE: this is generally where you would have lack of communication, not lived together as husband and wife for longer than a year love lots of love and respect of with one another, on occasion abuse of drugs and alcohol as well as affairs and loss of court consortium.
THE MINOR/ DEPENDENT CHILDREN
With regards to minor children or major children who are still dependent on their parents, one has to look at different aspects of this.
Primary residence needs to be considered, in other words where will the minor/dependent be living once the divorce has taken place and will the other spouse be granted contact.
The general public believe that contact is in fact called custody. When someone says custody it can be referred to as primary residence as well as contact depending on the intention of the spouse.
When it comes to contact the general synopsis is that alternative weekends as well as telephonic contact be granted to the spouse who does not have primary residence.
Another thing that needs to be considered is maintenance of the minor child and how the maintenance will work. This will not be discussed here but will be discussed in its own specific article as there is a lot of information.
MARITAL REGIME
When you get married there three different types of marital contract that you enter into at the beginning of the marriage.
Community of Property: this is where both assets and liabilities of both spouses are joint into one estate and at date of divorce the Estate is divided equally between the spouses.
Antenuptial Contract with Accrual: this is were both spouses have two estates. Which ever the smaller accrual is subtracted from the bigger accrual and then divided by half. The smaller accrual is entitled to the half of the difference between the two estates.
Antenuptial Contract without Accrual: this is where there are two completely separate estates and there are no claims against each other. The only items which will be divided equally is the joint assets, i.e. a house.
For any further information please feel free to contact Ghirao incorporated.