In Illinois, both spouses have a right to a fair share of any property considered marital property. In most cases, the marital home is considered marital property. It can be difficult to know what to do with your house or condo during divorce. Should you fight to keep the home in order to retain some sense of normalcy? Should you sell the home and use the proceeds to benefit your post-divorce life? Should one spouse buy out the other spouse’s share of the home? If you are unsure of what to do with the marital home during your divorce, ask yourself the following questions.

What is My Home Worth?

If you are getting divorced and you are unsure of how to address the marital home, the first step is to get the home professionally appraised. You cannot make a sound decision about what to do until you know what the home is worth.

Can I Afford to Keep the Home?

Once you know what your home is worth, you can start to consider what it would cost to maintain the home. Can you afford to maintain the house and yard? What about the property taxes, HOA fees, and insurance? Does the home have roof damage or other problems that will need to be repaired in the next several years?

When a woman gives birth to a baby, she automatically becomes the child’s mother in the eyes of the law. However, the same is not true for fathers. In many cases, a father is not considered a child’s legal parent until paternity is established. You cannot put a father’s name on a birth certificate until paternity is established either through a VAP or other means. If you are a mother who wants to seek child support from the father, you will need to establish paternity before you can do so. One of the easiest ways to establish paternity is to sign a Voluntary Acknowledgement of Paternity (VAP).

What is a VAP?

A Voluntary Acknowledgement of Paternity (VAP) is a document that confirms paternity, or the legal parent relationship between a child and the father. Both parents must sign the VAP in front of a witness for it to be valid. If one of the parents refuses to sign the VAP document, it may not be used to establish paternity.

Financial disclosure is a crucial aspect of any divorce. Spouses cannot address the division of property, child support, or other financial concerns unless they are on the same page financially. Unfortunately, some divorcing spouses are more transparent than others when it comes to finances. If your spouse is trying to hide money from you or otherwise lie about finances during divorce, contact a divorce lawyer for help. Your spouse’s deceptive behavior can have a major impact on the outcome of your divorce.

Signs of Financial Fraud in a Joliet Divorce Case

Hiding assets can take many different forms. Some spouses literally hide cash or valuables in order to shield them from division during divorce. They may use a safety deposit box, secret bank account, or transfer assets to a friend or family member. Business owners may manipulate their business’s financial records to hide money through the business.

Parents who divorce or who are not married when the child is born are often subject to court orders, including child custody orders and child support orders. Presently, Illinois law does not use the term child custody or visitation. Instead, the law describes parenting duties in terms of “parental responsibilities” and “parenting time.” Parenting time is the amount of time the parent spends caring for the child. If you are a divorced or unmarried parent, it is important to understand the relationship between parenting time and child support.

Are Child Support Payments Based on the Amount of Parenting Time?

Illinois child support payments are calculated using the Income Shares formula. Both parents’ incomes are used to determine the amount of financial support the child should receive. This amount is split between the parents based on their respective incomes. The parent with the least amount of parenting time pays his or her share of this financial support to the parent with the most parenting time.

The amount of parenting time a parent is responsible for does not typically influence child support payments. However, there is one exception: If both parents have 40 percent or more of the parenting time, this is a “shared parenting” arrangement. In a shared parenting situation, the amount of child support the paying parent pays is affected by how much parenting time each parent has.

The term “narcissist” may refer to someone with a narcissistic personality disorder or simply someone who exhibits a pattern of selfish, manipulative, and harmful behavior towards others. Divorce is rarely easy. However, when you are divorcing a narcissist or someone displaying narcissistic behaviors, the process can seem unbearable. Fortunately, there are resources and techniques that may help you get through a high-conflict divorce or stressful co-parenting relationship with a narcissist. One of these techniques is called the “grey rock” method.

Divorcing a Narcissist

Understandably, every divorce has some degree of contention. However, some divorcing spouses go out of their way to make the process as antagonistic as possible. They refuse to cooperate with even the smallest requests and say things to intentionally upset the other spouse. They may try to hide assets or lie about finances. Sometimes this behavior even escalates to abuse.