Marriage and family life are worthwhile experiences during your lifetime. However, life never works out the same way for everyone. In fact, a lot of people suffer from abusive, nonmutual, uncommitted, and unfaithful relationships, which negatively impacts both parties involved and their families. Eventually, they meet at agreements leading to divorce.
Once your separation process starts, it’s extremely essential to know your rights during a divorce to accurately identify what assets, support, and custody you’ll be receiving. That said, here are your rights when you get divorced that you should take note of:
Financial Settlements
In order to explain who’ll receive what, the term ‘financial settlements’ is established by the court, mainly to describe financial proceedings within a divorce. Since you were previously promised to one another, you’re given the right to access your former partner’s finances, as well as their access to yours. This can create misunderstandings.
In terms of financial access, the court will allow the party who’s more equipped to regenerate and regrow the finances, and the other party will be more likely to receive less. If you think you’re at a disadvantage, there are still possible solutions to resort to.
To efficiently assess and divide your assets, and get the most of your financial settlement, hire a great lawyer that’ll guide you through this process. Make sure to choose the right lawyer, such as the ones from McFarling Law Group, to explain all your financial preferences within that range.
When hiring a lawyer, they’ll talk to you about factors that may affect the court’s decision, such as the length of the relationship, age of parties, income, pension provisions, and held assets (both individual and joint).
You can opt for settling these agreements with your former partner, outside the court premises. Doing so saves time, money, and heartache for everyone.
Property Rights
Generally, property distribution laws between parties in divorce vary from region to region, but they’re usually divided into two: community or non-community properties.
Community properties refer to those properties accumulated during the course of the marriage. Your rights to properties will mainly depend on how long the property is owned and whether jointly owned. Moreover, it can also be impacted by prenuptial and cohabitation agreements agreed upon obtaining the property. As long as you’re married to your former partner, you have the right of occupation in your properties, even if your name wasn’t in the deeds.
In some cities, properties owned by a married person are either community property (owned jointly by both parties) or a separate property owned only by one person. During proceedings, community properties are usually distributed equally among both parties, while separate properties remain on their respective owners.
Rights of Children
The rights of children are indeed crucial to the point that the established divorce laws are fundamentally built upon the rights of children instead of their parents. In this way, innocent children will remain safe within the coverage of the law and can’t be harmed by other intervening parties.
Married people automatically have parental responsibility for their children. Also, this allows them to have the right to make decisions on their behalf, including health and education matters. However, if they’re not officially married, the mother automatically has parental rights and responsibility, in all cases.
Unfortunately, fathers don’t usually receive the parental responsibility of their children, especially when the parent with whom the child stays is still determined not to let contact occur. It can be difficult for the court to intervene in an effective way, but they can work with residence arrangements, and even send a parent to prison if they continue disobeying the orders of the court.
Economic Support
Divorce and legal separations don’t simply harm the emotional and mental health of its victims, but they also have a negative impact on their financial stability. When you divorce from your spouse, your rights on receiving economic support depend on these factors: if you have a married or common-law relationship with your spouse and if you have children.
In some circumstances, spousal support is required to be provided to the former spouse, with the following conditions:
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Legal marriage
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Common-law relationship with children
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At least 3 years of common-law relationship with no children
Moreover, if your child lives with you, you’re entitled to the right to obtain child support. The person who’ll pay for child support is called the “payor.” If you’re entitled to spousal and child support, don’t hesitate to ask for legal advice to shed light on these matters.
Conclusion
The process and aftermath of divorce is a dark place, but it might be better for bad relationships to end like this. In this way, both parties have an opportunity to choose how to continue their lives without having to deal with the repercussions of an awful relationship.
As long as you know your rights and have legal assistance, you’re on the right path towards moving on with your own life.
