The Cost of Waging War in Divorce!!

Sometimes husband and wife get caught up in the moment and lose perspective as to what is important, if your headed for divorce and you know there is not other alternative, you should keep a few things in mind.  In a divorce, the parties should be thinking of the most efficient way to break free from each other but often times the parties become more entrenched by opposing each other in every aspect of the divorce causing legal fees to go up and up and ultimately just prolong the inevitable.  

I advise clients to only dispute the really important matters that absolutely cant be resolved by them and to try to find a happy median with most everything else. Basically don’t sweat the little stuff, its not worth it.

Florida, the state where I practice is a no fault state, meaning it does not matter why the parties are divorcing.  It does not matter whether the wife ran off with her assistant or the husband ran off with the tennis coach, whats important is that the marriage is irretrievably broken.  I know its hard, but you have to leave emotion out of a divorce and think logically, it doesn’t matter who gets the couch.

Whatever the parties had together is marital and will be split in half in whats called equitable distribution.  Equitable distribution is the division of both your assets (checking account, retirement account, house, pension, car, jewelery, etc) and your liabilities (mortgages, loans, credit cards, or other debts). If you came into the marriage with assets or liabilities these amounts should not be considered as part of your equitable distribution of marital assets.  Also, if you have received an inheritance and have not commingled it then this asset is also not marital.

War is costly, the more you know before you go into war the less you are likely to spend in needless attorneys fees and costs.  As an attorney, I will tell you that we are wired to want to fight for our clients and obtain a result which is in our clients best interest.  Sometimes its worth paying to fight a war and other times its not.  Your attorney should be able to tell you the pros and cons of litigating your matter as opposed to trying to find an amicable solution from the start. 

In a typical divorce, the petitioner or plaintiff who files for divorce will incur the cost of filing along with the cost of service of the documents on the respondent or defendant.  Basically, the husband or wife who files will incur a filing fee and service fee which is usually in the range of $500.00.  Attorneys in family cases usually charge hourly unless the divorce is amicable between the parties and the attorney can price a flat fee for what is called an uncontested divorce where all of the parties agree on the terms of the divorce.

If your in the process of divorce or are thinking about divorce, analyze what is important, minimize costs by only litigating whats truly important, it may be time sharing with your kids or some other matter that cant be resolved amicably.  Stay informed in your case, just because you have an attorney does not mean you shouldn’t be on top of whats going on.  Good luck, for any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me, Javier L. Gonzalez, Esq. at jgonzalez@gr-law.net.