Orlando Divorce Lawyer

To ensure that you get what you deserve, you have to talk to your attorney about the specific issue. Gather all the bank statements, financial documents, and credit card statements. Any financial statement you can get your hands on, get a copy and give it to your attorney. Also consider hiring a forensic accountant, whose job is to trace exactly where money is going and coming from. With that, you can show the judge your spouse is underemployed, intentionally unemployed, or hiding money. The judge will enter it as income if you can prove it’s a cash business and your spouse is hiding money and not showing it in tax returns or financial statements.

A spouse cannot prevent a court from granting a divorce in Florida. What the spouse can do is ask the court to order the parties to counseling to see if they can fix the marriage. Once they go to counseling and the spouse is adamant about getting a divorce, there is nothing the other spouse can do to stop the court from granting it.

Yes. Under Article IV of the U.S. Constitution there is full faith and credit, which means once an order is issued in any state, the sister state has to respect and enforce it. If a divorce and final judgment are issued in another state, the next step is domestication: you take that final judgment and domesticate it here in Florida for the order to be enforced.

While your spouse is stationed in another country on active duty, it will be very hard to initiate and complete the divorce. Once you file, you will generally have to wait for your spouse to return, because federal laws protect people in the military. The best approach is to consult with an attorney and, if possible, try to settle with your partner before they are deployed for active duty.

Yes. In either your petition or your counter-petition, you request that the court reinstate your maiden name. The final judgment then has to state with specificity that your name is restored to your maiden name. Once that is done, you have a legal document to restore your name.

If your husband cleaned out an account and you have no way of recovering that money, there is little a judge can directly do. But if the parties have, say, $100,000 in assets and your spouse liquidated $50,000, the judge can award you the remaining $50,000 to balance what was taken during or immediately before the proceeding. However, if the account was cleaned out long before the divorce began, say a year, two, or three, there is very little a judge can do.

Usually not, but you can delay. You can ask the judge to order you and your spouse to counseling. However, if your spouse is adamant about moving forward with the divorce, there is nothing you can do to prevent it from taking place.

Yes, you can represent yourself. But be mindful that if you have considerable assets, time-sharing issues, children, or a parenting plan to work out, you should at least consult an attorney to identify exactly what the issues are. Once those issues are laid out, you can make an educated decision about whether you need an attorney or can represent yourself.

No, your spouse cannot tell you that you cannot see your kids. Raising your children is a fundamental right, which means that unless there is abuse or neglect happening to the kids, no one can stop you from seeing your children.

It depends on the facts of each case: the duration of the marriage, the age of the parties, and the lifestyle lived during the marriage. The main things that need to be proven are one spouse’s ability to pay and the other spouse’s need for alimony. Once those factors are proven, a judge determines what the alimony will be.

Do your research. Search online and read reviews for each attorney, or ask friends and family for a recommendation. Once you have a short list of three to five attorneys, decide who you will interview. Ask all the questions you have, and gauge how comfortable you feel with each one. After that, it will be easy to decide which attorney should represent you.

Start by filing your petition for divorce and personally serving it on your spouse. Your spouse has 20 days to respond. If they do not respond within that period, you can move forward and ask the judge to grant a default. If you cannot find your spouse, another route is service by publication. Talk to an attorney about how to effectuate that service, since it is very technical.

First, pull your credit and figure out exactly what you owe and what your credit card debt is, including any debt held jointly with your spouse. Make sure those payments are being made and that no payments are late. Once a joint account is paid off, consider closing it, so you don’t have to worry about your ex-spouse using that card and missing a payment that hurts your credit score.

A divorce is initiated by filing a petition for dissolution of marriage. Once it is filed and personally served on the respondent (your spouse), he or she has 20 days to respond. That is how a divorce is initiated in the state of Florida.

This is a very fluid question and hard to answer precisely. It can take anywhere from 20 days to three, four, or five years, depending on the facts and how complicated the proceeding is. The shortest path is roughly 20 days, when the answer is due. If the opposing party files an answer along with a settlement agreement, it could take around 20 to 25 days.

It depends on the facts. If you were married only a few months and both agree to call it quits, you may not need an attorney. But if it is a long-term marriage and you may be entitled to alimony, you should talk to an attorney to understand your rights. You also need to understand what counts as marital assets and marital liabilities, since you may not know exactly what you are entitled to. Even a single consultation to understand your rights under Florida law is very important.

Usually yes. Not making a payment you are obligated to make is disfavored, especially when there are children in common. Stopping rent, water, or electric payments looks bad in front of a judge. Continuing to make those payments is important to show the court that you are a responsible parent who is not neglecting your duties.

Usually it cannot be used against you. The exception is if you have children in common and you have them around that person, and that relationship is negatively impacting the children. Courts look at the best interest of the children, and if the situation is not in their best interest, it can affect you.

It depends. If the house was premarital property, meaning it was yours before you married, then generally yes. But talk to an attorney about whether the home appreciated in value, since that appreciation might be marital. If the house was purchased during the marriage, it is marital property. There are ways to keep the house, but you need an attorney to figure out exactly how.

Technically no. Florida is a no-fault state, so the fact that they cheated has no bearing on the divorce itself. The way an affair can matter is if you have children in common, the spouse introduced that person to the children, and the introduction negatively affected them. You would have to prove, under the best interest of the child standard, why it was not in their best interest. Speak to an attorney about how to move forward.

Yes. Sit down with your spouse and figure out how to split your assets and liabilities. Once that is done, you can draft your own marital settlement agreement or have an attorney draft it for you and your spouse to sign. Once signed, it is filed with the court, a final judgment is signed, and you are done.

It depends. If you would like to meet with the mediator separately, you can. Mediation is a relaxed environment, and parties are encouraged to try to work out their differences and settle. The mediator will help you and your spouse reach a settlement and get the case resolved.

After you have been personally served, you file an answer within 20 days, responding to every allegation in the petition. Also keep in mind a possible counter-petition: what you do not ask for, you do not get. If you do not ask the judge to grant you something, you are waiving your right to that request in the proceeding.

You can always settle out of court, either through both attorneys or through mediation. There are different venues to settle outside of court. Even after a settlement, there is a roughly 10-minute uncontested divorce hearing that one of you, usually the petitioner, should attend. You appear for that short hearing and the judge renders your divorce.

At a temporary hearing you address certain issues, for example alimony, child support, the parenting plan, time-sharing, and possibly attorney fees. You present evidence pertaining to each issue. For instance, if you want more than 50% time-sharing, you have to show the judge why that is in the best interest of the children.

It depends. If the business was set up during the marriage, then usually yes, and your spouse may end up with about 50%. A prenuptial agreement would change that. If the business was started before the marriage, then the appreciation in the business during the marriage is what your spouse may be entitled to.

Yes. You can go to court and show the judge that your ex-spouse is not following a court order. You can ask the judge to find them in contempt of court for not following that order, and you can also ask for attorney fees. The judge will likely award attorney fees for bringing the action and find your ex-spouse in contempt.

If you are married and your husband wants to relinquish his rights during the proceeding, it is very hard to nearly impossible to do. What you can do is ask for sole parental responsibility, time-sharing, and no overnights if that is what your spouse wants. After the divorce is final and you later remarry, a step-parent adoption is the route that allows your ex-spouse to relinquish his rights to the children.

That is not legal. Your spouse cannot kick you out of the house. That said, it is not always advisable to stay in the home when there are serious conflicts, given the risk of domestic violence if you and your partner are constantly fighting. Consult an attorney, and if there is violence between the parties, you may need to file an injunction, but there is no reason your spouse can simply remove you from your home.

If you have been served with divorce papers, the first thing to do is file your answer within the 20-day period. Failing to file lets your spouse seek a default, which you do not want. After you file your answer, gather all your financial information so it is ready to give to an attorney, who can review it and give feedback on what a settlement might look like if you and your spouse are looking to settle.

Emergency orders are rarely issued. Think of it like an emergency room: there has to be a real emergency for the judge to stop everything and look at what you are asking for. Typical reasons include child kidnapping or abduction, or neglect or abuse of a minor child. That is when a judge will issue an emergency order stopping your spouse from doing whatever you are alleging.

Temporary orders are issued after a temporary hearing, and they matter because they set the stage for what happens next. For example, if one spouse unreasonably asks for 100% time-sharing at that hearing and there is no solid evidence to support it, and they end up with 50%, it establishes that what they were asking for was unreasonable.

The most common financial mistake is having no idea what your spouse is racking up in debt. Credit card debt is a type of debt both spouses are liable for. During the proceeding, if that debt climbs to $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, or $50,000, you are responsible for half of it. Be mindful and pay attention to what your spouse is spending on credit before and during the divorce.

If you settled and signed a settlement agreement, you are signing divorce papers. But if you go to court and the judge makes the ultimate decision on how the divorce is handled, you do not need to sign anything. The judge’s signature is what ends the divorce.

To cancel your divorce, you file a motion to dismiss. You have to file that motion before the judge signs the final judgment. If the final judgment is already signed and you then file your motion, it will not be granted, because the divorce has already been granted.

Any debt acquired during the marriage is marital debt, meaning both you and your spouse are liable for it. Before the divorce is finalized, that debt is something you will either settle on or that gets addressed in the judgment. If you have questions, talk to an attorney about exactly how your debt will be treated.

Anything acquired during the marriage is marital property, including a retirement account and its appreciation. Talk to an attorney about how your 401(k) will be handled. A pension plan works the same way: if acquired during the marriage, or acquired before but appreciated during the marriage, it may be treated as marital property. It depends on the facts, so consult an attorney about how your 401(k) or pension will be dealt with.

If you need support while the divorce is still in process, you go to court and ask the judge to grant relief, either spousal support or child support. You have to show the judge how much you make, how much your spouse makes, and file the proper documents for that hearing. Then you can obtain your relief.

A marital settlement agreement is a contract between the parties. When you and your partner agree on the issues, your attorney or even you can draft it. In it, both of you agree on how to split assets and liabilities and, if you have children in common, decide on a time-sharing schedule and parenting plan.

An uncontested divorce is when the spouses agree on how to end their marriage. You and your spouse either mediate or agree before even filing the petition. You file your agreement on how to split assets and liabilities and, if you have children, set up a parenting plan or time-sharing schedule. Once filed, the divorce is entered and a final judgment is signed. That is an uncontested divorce.

Once your petition is filed, you will need financial documents: tax returns, bank statements, and credit card statements. Those are the documents needed to proceed. You will also receive similar documents from your spouse. When they provide them, you decide how to proceed, whether to settle or go to court and litigate the assets, liabilities, and time-sharing.

Bring the petition if one has been filed and you have been served. If it has not been filed and you are the one filing, bring your financial statements, such as bank and credit card statements. If you suspect abuse of the children by your spouse, bring evidence, such as pictures or videos, to show your attorney so you can get advice on what to do next.

If a petition has been filed, you cannot move out of Florida, and you cannot even move more than 50 miles from your current residence without asking the court to allow it. You can try to agree with your spouse that the move is in the children’s best interest, for example to be near family or for a job offering more financial stability. If you both agree, you can move. If you cannot agree, you have to go to court and show the judge why the relocation is in the children’s best interest, and the judge may then allow it.

The single biggest reason to consider mediation is that you and your spouse get to decide how to end your marriage, rather than leaving it to a judge to divide your assets or set when you see your kids. In Florida, once the petition is filed you must attend mediation before seeing a judge. Mediating even before filing is a great idea, because it lets you and your spouse end the marriage amicably and decide together how to split assets and share time with and raise your children.

There are many reasons to consult an attorney during a divorce. Knowledge is power, and understanding your legal rights is exactly what you need before entering or handling a divorce. You need to understand what is marital versus premarital in terms of assets and liabilities, and if you have children in common, how time-sharing and the parenting plan will be handled.

It depends. If your house is separate property you acquired before the marriage, you would probably keep it. But the appreciation on that property may be a marital asset divided between you and your spouse. A prenup changes the whole situation. There are many facts to consider before determining whether you can keep a house or a car in the divorce.