When determining if a business is a marital asset in New York it must be determined if the business was acquired or accrued value during the time of the marriage or not. If the answer is yes then it’s a divisible asset. If the answer is no, then other factors may need to come into play, but as a general…Read More
There are several factors one should consider when going through a divorce case involving a business. One would be well advised to retain a forensic accountant to assist them getting business documents together, especially with someone that has a small business. That’s generally one which has 10 to 20 employees or less – even up to 30, 40, or 50…Read More
Preliminarily, in New York “alimony” is termed as “maintenance.” That said, I would not term it as “mandatory.” That term seems to imply that the non-monied spouse is entitled to maintenance. I’ve heard some attorneys throw out the term entitlement or entitled – that’s simply wrong under the law. The law does not use the terms mandatory or entitled. The…Read More
There is no timeframe on that. The statute is phrased that the longer you are married, the longer the presumptive duration of maintenance that you may be entitled to claim. The statute sets up a presumptive formula and they look at short, medium, and long-term marriages. A short-term marriage is defined in the statute as zero to 15 years, medium…Read More
For a person with a high net worth that’s intending to get married pre or post nuptial agreements can be critical. The difference between the two is that a prenuptial agreement is executed before you get married and a post nuptial agreement is executed soon after you get married. If they are done right, they are legally binding and enforceable.…Read More
The speed and ease of your divorce depends on many different things. For example, was your pre or post nuptial agreement done correctly? Unfortunately, I have seen pre and post nuptial agreements that are done because somebody got a form off the Internet, or they went to a low-cost attorney, or they went to an attorney that does not practice…Read More
Yes, a prenuptial agreement can protect future assets. Those are common provisions you would put in to a prenuptial agreement. If there’s the possibility of divorce I advise my clients to make that prenuptial agreement as ironclad as possible. You want to keep premarital accounts separate. For example, if you had a checking account, savings account, investment account, retirement account,…Read More
If the parties have joint bank accounts or credit cards, one can move to divide those bank accounts. One can also simply go into the joint account, withdraw half of the current balance, and deposit it into a separate account. You can cancel the joint credit cards. There is no reason to await the divorce filing. In fact, once you…Read More
In a typical divorce, debt is divided equally. Obviously, if some of the debt with one particular party is associated just with their own expenses, you may be able to argue that some of that debt should be considered their own separate debt. It works a little differently in a high asset divorce case because a lot of the time,…Read More
In New York State, there is currently a cap on income for maintenance purposes (otherwise known as alimony or spousal support) of $184,000 per year. That amount increases by $2,000 to $3,000 every year. In a really high-income case, one of the main issues at trial will be the standard of living that you became accustomed to. For that, one…Read More
