Sacramento Divorce & Family Law Blog

Who Can File for an Annulment?

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:46:45 +0000

Usually only a party to the marriage can file for an annulment. Sometimes just one party can ask that the marriage be annulled. For example, if the marriage is between an uncle and niece, either could seek an annulment. But if an underage person get married, only he or she can assert lack of age as aground for an annulment. If fraud or duress was the basis for the marriage, only the person deceived or coerced can ask for annulment. If one person was impotent or physically unable to have sexual relation at the time of marriage, usually only the other person can get the annulment. The one exception to this last example is the rare instance when the person did not know of the problem before marriage; either party can file for an annulment in such a case.

Occasionally, someone not a party to the marriage can ask that it be annulled. For instance, the parents of an underage bride or groom can ask the court to annul the marriage. If a mentally incompetent person got married, his or her legal guardian or closest relative can file for an annulment.

If you or a loved one is in need of an expert Sacramento legal separation attorney, call (916) 266-0188 to speak with Robert N. Kitay today. It is important to protect your legal rights.

Law Office of Robert N. Kitay
Sacramento Family Law
2508 Garfield Avenue, Suite A
Carmichael CA 95608

Void & Voidable Marriages

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:37:05 +0000

Some marriages are void from the start; others are merely voidable. The distinction between the two can be critical. A void marriage can never be recognized as legal. A voidable marriage, on the other hand, can be annulled within the time limit set by law, but if not so annulled, it becomes valid.

A marriage between close relatives, such as first cousins in states that forbid such marriages, is void and can never be made legal. Similarly, if a person is married at one time to two people, the second marriage is void and nothing can be done to validate it.

Marriages based on fraud or coercion are generally voidable. If you fail to take steps to annul the marriage within the prescribed tim after learning that you were deceived or after the coercion ends, the marriage is recognized as valid. If you wait to long, the only way you can get out of the marriage is through a divorce. The period of time in which you must file to annul a voidable marriage varies from state to state: anywhere form 90 days to 4 years after you learn of the ground for annulment. However, we strongly advise that once you discover the facts that would give you grounds for an annulment of your marriage and you want out of your marriage, you contact competent family law lawyer as soon as possible.

A marriage involving an underage person is voidable. The underage party must file for an annulment within the set period, before reaching the age consent to 40 years after coming of age, depending on your states law, or this ground for annulment is lost. Likewise, a person who has mentally incompetent at the time the marriage took place has to file of an annulment within the time set by law once he or she regains mental capacity.

If you or a loved one is in need of an expert Sacramento legal separation lawyer, call (916) 266-0188 to speak with Robert N. Kitay today. It is important to protect your legal rights.

Law Office of Robert N. Kitay
Sacramento Family Law
2508 Garfield Avenue, Suite A
Carmichael CA 95608

Grounds for an Annulment

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:21:23 +0000

We already have discussed four things that are grounds for an annulment in most states: an underage party; bigamy; and lack of mental competency. Sexual impotency or physical inability to have sexual intercourse is reason for an annulment in most states, at least where the other person was not aware of it before marriage. Some states permit an annulment if one of the parties is a drug addict, a habitual criminal, or a prostitute. An annulment is available in some states if the women was pregnant with another man’s child at the time of the marriage. Failure to comply with all the formalities of marriage or remarrying before a previous divorce becomes final is also grounds for annulment.

Fraud is sometimes a sufficient ground for an annulment. Suppose a woman falsely tells her boyfriend that he has gotten her pregnant, and he marries her primarily out of feeling of duty toward the nonexistent child. A court can annul the marriage because of the woman’s deception. An example of deception that isn’t enough to annul a marriage: A man tells a woman that he is a multimillionaire, has a villa in Spain, a chateau on the French Riviera, and so on. They get married and she soon learns that he is in fact an assistant French-fry cook at a local fast food restaurant and has no money. In the eyes of the law, she married the man for the love of him, not for the love of his money, so it shouldn’t make a difference how rich or poor he is.

In some cases, coercion or duress can be the basis for a court to grant an annulment. For example, if the brides father threatens to physically harm the groom if he doesn’t marry his daughter, this is probably enough to get the marriage nullified.

If you or a loved one is in need of an expert family law attorney Sacramento, call (916) 266-0188 to speak with Robert N. Kitay today. It is important to protect your legal rights.

Law Office of Robert N. Kitay
Sacramento Family Law
2508 Garfield Avenue, Suite A
Carmichael CA 95608

Annulments

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:05:32 +0000

An annulment is a legal declaration that a marriage never existed, that it was null and void from the beginning, that something at the start prevented the marriage from being valid. The difference between a divorce and an annulment is this: In a divorce a valid marriage is legally ended, while an annulment means that the “marriage” never existed in the first place.

At one time, courts could not make an award of alimony if annulment was granted. Today many states permit the courts to award alimony and divide the property much the same as if a divorce were involved. A person has never been allowed to use an annulment to avoid his or her responsibilities toward a child born of the “marriage.”

If you or a loved one is in need of an expert family law lawyer Sacramento, call (916) 266-0188 to speak with Robert N. Kitay today. It is important to protect your legal rights.

Law Office of Robert N. Kitay
Sacramento Family Law
2508 Garfield Avenue, Suite A
Carmichael CA 95608

Alimony Part 6

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:43:29 +0000

If your ex-spose falls behind in making spousal support payments, your lawyer can obtain a court order requiring that the payments be made current. If the person has moved out of state, it is still relatively easy to enforce the delinquent support obligations throughout the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement Support Act. At a court hearing, the person will be given an opportunity to explain his or her failure to pay. If the court orders payments brought up to date, and the person fails to do so, he or she can be found in contempt of court and jailed. Although it is said that there is no “debtors prison” in America, the fact is that many ex-husbands currently are spending time in jail for failing to make spousal support payments. the law relies on the technicality that the person is in jail for failing to pay the debt, but rather failing to comply with a court order. It’s really just a matter of semantics made necessary by the fact that it is unconstitutional to incarcerate a person for failing to pay monetary debt.

Spousal support paid to an ex-spouse can be deducted from the payers federal income taxes if certain requirements are met, and the spouse who receives the spousal support generally must include the payments in his or her taxable income in the year received. Spousal support payments may also be deductible on state income tax returns.

Alimony Part 5

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:28:35 +0000

Say, for example, that Tom and Jane get divorced, and Tom is ordered to pay Jane $1,200 a month for five years in spousal support. Two years later, Jane moves in with her boyfriend (but does not marry him.) Does this affect Toms’ obligation to pay spousal support? Spousal support payments end in some states if the spouse receiving the payments has been living with a person of the opposite sex for a certain period of time, such as thirty days. Other states apply the rule that if a man and a woman present themselves to others as husband and wife, the ex spouses obligation to pay spousal support ends. One court ruled that signing a hotel register as “Mr. and Mrs.” was sufficient to show that the couple presented themselves to the public as married, and accordingly cut off spousal support payments. In any event, if Jane is receiving financial assistance form her live-in companion, Tom’s attorney may be able to persuade a judge to reduce the spousal support payments in light of this new support.

Suppose that your spouse has been ordered to pay you $800 a month in spousal support for ten years. What happens to the remaining payments if the spouse dies after, say, only five years? In many states, the obligation to pay spousal support ends with the death of the person who is obligated to make payments. In some states however, the obligation to pay future spousal support can be enforced against the deceased ex-spouse’s estate. But if the person doesn’t leave much of an estate, a judgement against it isn’t worth the paper its written on. If you will be receiving spousal support, you should insist that the settlement agreement require your spouse to maintain a life insurance policy insuring his or her life, with the proceeds available to you. This way, if your spouse does die before fulfilling the entire obligation to you, you are protected. But this protection is worthless, of course, if your spouse lets the policy lapse. An experienced family lawyer can prepare your agreement to prevent this from happening to you, such as by making you the owner of the policy and the one to make the payments on the policy, which expense is added to your monthly support.

If you or a loved one is in need of an expert spousal support attorney Sacramento, call (916) 266-0188 to speak with Robert N. Kitay today. It is important to protect your legal rights.

Law Office of Robert N. Kitay
Sacramento Family Law
2508 Garfield Avenue, Suite A
Carmichael CA 95608

Alimony Part 4

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:00:26 +0000

The amount of the spousal support payments can be changed by agreement of the parties, or by the judge upon request of either party, but only if he or she can demonstrate sufficiently changed circumstances. (Only court ordered spousal support payments can be changed by the judge. If a property settlement agreement spells out the terms of spousal support, the court generally cannot modify it.) The spouse who is paying the spousal support frequently will ask for a reduction if he or she is out of work or disabled for a time, is demoted to a job that pays less, or retires, especially if the retirement is related to his or her health. A reduction in the amount of spousal support often is requested if the spouse receiving it begins earning substantially more money than before. The spouse receiving the spousal support usually has a harder time getting the payments increased. That the other spouse who is paying the spousal support received a raise or suddenly came into a great deal of money ordinarily is not a good enough reason for the court to increase spousal support. The spouse receiving the spousal support must show that his or her own situation has changed sufficiently to justify an increase in spousal support.

How long must spousal support be paid? For as long as the court orders or the parties have agreed that it should as part of their property settlement. Spousal support stops when the spouse receiving it dies or, usually, when he or she remarries. If the new marriage is terminated by an annulment, however, spousal support can be reinstated in some cases. This usually happens only if the marriage was void, not merely voidable, as discussed above.

If you or a loved one is in need of an expert Sacramento spousal support attorney, call (916) 266-0188 to speak with Robert N. Kitay today. It is important to protect your legal rights.

Law Office of Robert N. Kitay
Sacramento Family Law
2508 Garfield Avenue, Suite A
Carmichael CA 95608

Alimony Part 3

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:43:03 +0000

Another factor taken into consideration is the overall standard of living the couple enjoyed during the marriage. While most people have heard that the wife is entitled to be supported in the manner which she has become accustomed, it is rarely possible for either party to continue living in the same style after a divorce. Earnings that previously supported only one household must now support two. To allow either spouse to continue living in his or her accustomed manner could mean that as much as 70 percent or more of the others paycheck might have to be turned over. Except in cases of the very wealthy, a divorce will reduce both parties standard of living for a while.

The judge may also consider the fault of the parties in determine spousal support. In some states, when a divorce is granted because of one spouses adultery, that spouse cannot receive any alimony. And if an unfaithful spouse is required to pay alimony to the innocent spouse, the judge may take that misconduct into consideration and order larger payments.

If you or a loved one is in need of an expert spousal support lawyer in Sacramento, call (916) 266-0188 to speak with Robert N. Kitay today. It is important to protect your legal rights.

Law Office of Robert N. Kitay
Sacramento Family Law
2508 Garfield Avenue, Suite A
Carmichael CA 95608

Alimony Part 2

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:31:23 +0000

How much spousal support will you get? There is no set formula for determining how much spousal support, if indeed any, must be paid in a particular case. The alimony may range from nothing at all to half of what the other spouse makes. The judge will look at all of the circumstances of each case before making a decision. Some of the factors the judge considers are how long the parties were married, how much money each earns, the number of children and their ages, whether one spouse stayed at home raising the children, the health of the parties, and how del-supporting each spouse is. Obviously, a 45 year old woman who never graduated from high school and who has stayed at home taking care of the kids for the last 20 years is not as readily employable and self-supporting as a 25 year old woman who has a masters degree in computer science with no children who has been working throughout a 3 year marriage. A higher amount of spousal support often is awarded for the time a spouse s being trained for the current job market.

If you or a loved one is in need of an expert spousal support lawyer Sacramento, call (916) 266-0188 to speak with Robert N. Kitay today. It is important to protect your legal rights.

Law Office of Robert N. Kitay
Sacramento Family Law
2508 Garfield Avenue, Suite A
Carmichael CA 95608

Alimony

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:20:50 +0000

Alimony (or “spousal support”) is money one spouse pays to the other to help support him or here after the divorce. If you don’t agree with your spouse on whether spousal support has to be paid, how much should be paid, and for how long, a judge will decide for you. At one time, it was invariably the husband who wound up paying spousal support. Today, however, when both spouses have a working history the judge is less likely to award spousal support, or if it is awarded, it is less than if the wife had stayed home taking care of the kids for 25 years. Today, some men take on the role of primary caregiver for the couple’s children, and they are entitled to collect spousal support until they are retrained and can enter the modern marketplace.

We normally think of spousal support in terms of monthly payments. But any other means of payment that the parties agree to or the court orders such as quarterly or annual payments is possible. Sometimes a spouse will accept a single, lump sum payment of spousal support and the bulk of the community property in place of future monthly support payments. When this happens, the other spouse should make sure that he or she is not giving away too much too fast in order to get out of an unpleasant situation.

If you or a loved one is in need of an expert Sacramento spousal support lawyer, call (916) 266-0188 to speak with Robert N. Kitay today. It is important to protect your legal rights.

Law Office of Robert N. Kitay
Sacramento Family Law
2508 Garfield Avenue, Suite A
Carmichael CA 95608