“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” – Albert Einstein.
In my years as a divorce lawyer in Illinois, financial infidelity has been a bigger issue in my divorce cases than actual infidelity. Spending money and incurring debt without the permission of the other spouse is simply a bridge too far. It is one thing to break up with someone…but it is another thing to
Cash money has a strange effect on people. Cash seems more real because you can touch and see the money. Cash is not just digital numbers on a spreadsheet somewhere. Cash can be instantly transferred or received. If no one keeps a record (and no one ever does), the parties to a cash transaction are
Has anyone really been surprised that they got a divorce? I don’t think so. Instead, couples facing divorce plan for months or years for their divorce. They organize their schedule around the kids. They build up an emergency divorce fund. They compile evidence of their spouse’s misdeeds. People even try to hide assets they believe
When you know you are getting divorced, you don’t need to wait for a court to order a division of assets to start dividing items. Couples usually each claim the car they were driving, their clothes and even pets well before the divorce decree is entered. For whatever reason, dividing a bank account in advance
While a divorce is usually about who gets what asset, most people have a mix of assets and debts. A married couple’s debts are also divided in an Illinois divorce. Illinois divorce courts “shall divide the marital property without regard to marital misconduct in just proportions” 750 ILCS 503(d) “It is well settled that marital debts as well
***Updated in March 2021 to reflect the massive interest in cryptocurrencies*** Millions of people have purchased Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Millions of people have also gotten divorced. Therefore, several Bitcoin owners got divorced and had to address the division of their marital assets…which include cryptocurrencies which are difficult to verify and difficult to value. Disclosing
Getting a divorce is a big deal. Some people just aren’t ready for a divorce. If you can no longer live with your husband or wife…but cannot abandon your home and file for divorce, you may want to functionally separate your life without getting an actual divorce in Illinois. Why Would Someone Not Want To
One of the most common scenarios in an Illinois divorce is finding that one spouse has non-marital property from before the marriage. The allegedly non-marital property is usually a house that both people live in, pay for, and keep repaired over the course of years. Of course, after a divorce has been filed, the owner
A house is often a married couple’s greatest asset. How they treated that house during the course of their marriage will determine the value of the house and the subsequent allocation of that value during an Illinois divorce. Home improvements can be a factor in determining the equitable distribution of marital assets in an Illinois
They say the two best days in a boater’s life are the day they buy the boat and the day they sell it. Perhaps the same may be said of a marriage. Boats are a curious asset in an Illinois divorce because they are an extravagance. While a boat has value (if the boat is