Property division, child custody essential divorce considerations

Posted in Property Division on December 27, 2018

Even when a divorce proceeding is relatively amicable, the process of figuring out issues like property division or alimony can be complicated and often overwhelming. Those who are planning to end their marriage in California might want to take into consideration a couple of critical factors related to divorce before moving forward. Like many other things in life, being prepared for what lays ahead helps reduce surprises and avoid unnecessary pitfalls.

First, what will happen to the children? The reality is that the children of the divorced parents will spend their time in more than one household going forward. This may be hard for some divorced parents who are used to seeing their children every day of the year, including on holidays. During the divorce process, the parents will need to arrive make decisions about dividing and alternating their holidays from one year to the next.

Second, divorce can be expensive. Whatever assets the two spouses have amassed during their marriage will need to be split down the middle in California, which is a community property state. Usually, each party will end up with half of the community assets they enjoyed during their marriage. Also, one party might end up having to make spousal maintenance payments to the other spouse in the years following the end of the marriage.

Although divorce does come with some challenges, two spouses may make the process easier by trying to resolve their property division and other issues outside of court, rather than going through traditional divorce litigation. This might help them to feel more empowered and attain a mutually satisfactory outcome, which is often harder to achieve in court. An attorney in California can help an individual who is getting divorced to navigate an out-of-court settlement with confidence and in the most personally beneficial manner possible.

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