Benefits of Hiring an Attorney For a High-Asset Divorce

Going through the divorce process is a deeply emotional time. Sadly, it’s also the time to have a cool head in place to protect your rights and safeguard your assets, especially for divorcing spouses in high-asset divorces. One of the best benefits of hiring an attorney to navigate your high-asset divorce is that they are not emotionally involved in the breakup of the marriage. Instead, they can zero in on…

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How To Protect Your Wealth in a High-Asset Divorce

No divorce is easy. While dealing with the strong emotions that come with ending a married life together, divorcing spouses must also keep cool heads and sharp wits when it comes to disclosing and dividing their marital assets according to California’s equal division of community property law. This process is even more challenging in a high-asset divorce when each spouse may have both separate and marital assets to untangle and…

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Does It Matter Who Files for Divorce First?

Whether you’re considering filing for divorce from your spouse or you’ve received a divorce petition from a spouse, one thing you might need to know early in the process is how much it matters who files for divorce first. Does the spouse who makes the first legal move have any significant advantages, or is it better to wait for a spouse to take the first action and then respond? Divorce…

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What Happens to a Trust in a Divorce?

California is one of nine community property divorce states in which the“community” of two created during the marriage becomes dissolved in a divorce, requiring equal distribution of the assets acquired by the marital community. There is a lot to consider during this process, including discerning what assets are each spouse’s separate assets and which ones belong to the marital community. Another consideration for some spouses is a living trust created…

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Filing for Divorce Citing Irreconcilable Differences

California was the nation’s first no-fault divorce state beginning in 1969 with the signing of then-governor Ronald Reagan’s Family Law Act. Before that time, the law required anyone seeking to divorce a spouse to prove that the spouse had done something wrong—something unforgivable enough to break the marriage bond, for example, committing adultery or spousal abandonment. Today, all states have a form of no-fault divorce law. To file for divorce…

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How Should I File My Taxes While Going Through a Divorce?

There is a lot to consider during the divorce process in California. Besides the emotionally fraught aspects of divorce, there are also intimidating legal processes and the necessity of making new living arrangements and adjusting to a change in financial circumstances. For most divorcing spouses, how they should file their taxes is the last thing on their minds—at least until the tax deadline approaches and they’re still in the process…

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Who Gets To Stay in the House During a Divorce?

Choosing who gets to stay in the marital home during a divorce is often one of the most contentious issues when spouses separate, along with child custody and spousal support. California is a community property state where marital assets are split 50/50 between spouses in a divorce. The answer to the question of who keeps the house depends on the status of the house in or outside of the pool…

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How To Change Your Name After Divorce

While no one taking marriage vows expects their marriage to end in divorce, sadly, a significant number of walks down the aisle end at divorce court later. When closing one chapter of your life and opening a new one, it’s common to want a fresh start. For many newly divorced individuals, that fresh start includes moving on from a spouse’s last name and reclaiming the name they had before their…

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