Ocala Divorce Lawyer Blog

As a prospective client, you know that fastest, least costly and least emotionally draining way to resolve a divorce or family law matter is by entering into a Settlement Agreement. I'm sure you've heard of people who were divorce in 3 weeks because they agreed on everything involved in their divorce. The process was quick and relatively painless. So you are coming to see a lawyer to draw up a Settlement Agreement for your divorce, but you have forgotten one very important thing ... do you and your spouse agree to everything in your divorce. Have you sat down together and talked and decided how the assets and debts are going to be divided? Have you decided on a particular Parenting Plan if the two of you have children? Have the two of you discussed child support - who is paying how much and to whom? And do you agree on all these issues? If you haven't discussed these things - now is the time.

For your understanding, a Marital Settlement Agreement (MSA) contains all the terms of your settlement and essentially your Divorce. Every issue in your divorce, such as parenting-time, support and property, should be addressed. This written and signed contractual agreement is attached later to the Final Judgment and submitted to the court for its signature.

As your attorney, I will prepare, review and revise the Marital Settlement Agreement. I will make sure you understand and confirm that all the terms included in the MSA, and you are satisfied with the language used. And I will encourage you to ask more questions until you are comfortable that the terms as is written in the MSA are the ones you agreed to with your spouse.

Some terms are carried out immediately, such as "The 2006 Ford F-150 goes to the Husband." Others are ongoing but limited, such as "Wife shall assume all responsibility for the parties' debt to Sears." Still others may be ongoing, unlimited and subject to modification, such as "Husband shall pay to Wife on the first day of each and every month hereafter the sum of eight hundred dollars ($800) as spousal support until the death of either, remarriage by Wife or further order of Court."

The provisions will be grouped into paragraph-sections for easy reference. Terms such as child and spousal support are court orders and enforceable by contempt if not complied with. Others may not be directly enforceable, and will require legal action. Ask your attorney if you have any questions about enforcement. Every provision of your MSA is intended to be binding and enforceable, one way or another.

I want my clients to carefully review their MSA. Parenting Plans and Time-Sharing plans can be confusing; clean yours up now to prevent a dispute down the road. Make certain the document contains every term of the agreement that you intended to make with your spouse. Raise every concern you have about the meaning of terms. When you sign your MSA, that's it. You are represented by an attorney and you are a competent adult - when it's signed it's a "done deal." Your MSA will next go to the court to have Final Judgment entered.

If you are interested in having a Settlement Agreement resolve your Divorce or other Family law matter, please visit our website or call the office to schedule your initial consultation. We employ a client based approach, which means that we are selective in the cases we take so that we can be available to our clients. We spend time with you to thoroughly understand the facts of your case, so that we can provide you with a comprehensive and realistic legal evaluation. Our process begins with a half-hour low-cost consultation, all of which is credited back to your account if we accept your case.

The most common acronym we use is the divorce process is P-E-A-C-E. It is how divorce is arranged from most important to less important (not least important but just "less"). If the case cannot be settled by negotiation or by mediation, then the Court would address the parties divorce issues in this order. So what does the alphabet soup mean?

P= Parenting Plan. We don't have visitation or custody in our Statutes anymore. We have 2 parents and children. We have Parenting plans that divide up the time that each parent can spend with the child. These time sharing arrangements are called Parenting Plans. They are extremely detailed documents that tell the court and the parties who is going to be responsible for what with regards to the children.

E= Equitable Distribution. Once we have divided up the children's time we now have to divide up the parties assets and debts. This is often more complicated than it seems. There could be houses, cars, credit card debts, loans to parents or other family members, student loans, retirement accounts. Regardless, any asset or any debt that was acquired during the marriage (regardless of whose name it's in) is going to be divided. That means that the $10,000 of credit debt, the student loans, the notes on the cars are going to be divided regardless of whose name in on loan. Then there are pre-marial assets that are generally not divided. But there are exceptions to this as well. Equitable Distribution is not always equal, so it's very important to speak to a lawyer about your rights and obligations.

A= Alimony. Alimony is not a hard-fast formula It is governed by Florida Statute 61.08 Most commonly, Alimony is awarded in long-term marriages where there is income disparity between the spouses. Long-term marriages have been defined by being married (not just "living together") for more than 15 years. But there are other kinds of alimony available to help get one spouse back on his/her feet for a short period of time. Some typical types of alimony include bridge-the-gap, rehabilitative, and short term alimony. Spousal support is often times appropriate during the beginning stages of the divorce until the end. We can usually get some temporary relief in the form of temporary alimony going from the beginning of the case.

C=Child Support. Child support, unlike Alimony, is a fairly straight forward mathematical calculation based on the combined income of both parents. One of the most important factors in determining child support is the time-sharing of parents. The more equal the time-sharing the less child support one parent will pay to the other. Generally, over 40% overnights, will greatly reduce the amount of child support paid.

E= Everything else. The issues that don't fall neatly into these other categories are placed in this "catch all" category. Those issues could include pre-marital property or investments, 401K/retirement accounts, gifts from parents or family members, inheritances and lastly attorneys fees.

It is important to preserve and know your rights during the divorce process. Most people do not realize that a divorce is still very important civil litigation. To understand your right and what you are entitled to and want more information, please visit our website or call the office to schedule your initial consultation. We employ a client based approach, which means that we are selective in the cases we take so that we can be available to our clients. We spend time with you to thoroughly understand the facts of your case, so that we can provide you with a comprehensive and realistic legal evaluation. Our process begins with a half-hour low-cost consultation, all of which is credited back to your account if we accept your case.