Alimony is also known as spousal support and it refers to payments made by one spouse to support the other after separation or divorce. The payments may be lump sum payments or ongoing payments. Generally, post-separation alimony lasts until the divorce is concluded. However, a court may also award alimony…
Some people assume it’s not romantic to anticipate the possibility that you and your spouse won’t stay together, but in truth nobody can predict the future. Often people’s feelings change as their lives change. Sometimes marriages are more difficult than anticipated at the beginning. It can be helpful for partners…
Sometimes parental rights are terminated due to a parent’s failure to make reasonable progress to correct the situation that resulted in a child being removed from the home. But how does the court measure reasonable progress? And when does it do the measuring? In a recent North Carolina parental rights…
You may be wondering whether you’ll need an expert to value your property during a divorce. It may be necessary to retain one, but there are also some cases, where a property owner can provide adequate testimony about the value of assets. In a recent North Carolina appellate decision, a…
In North Carolina, custody can be modified when there is a substantial change of circumstances, but importantly, this change need not be adverse. A positive change can also be the basis for a modification of North Carolina child custody. In a recent appellate decision, the court considered modification of custody…
Sometimes parents disagree as to the best course of treatment for a child’s mental health or health condition, or with regard to education. These issues came up in a recent North Carolina child custody appellate decision, in which a father appealed the court’s order giving a mother primary physical custody…
In a recent unpublished opinion of a North Carolina child support decision, a court considered a child support order involving a mother who was voluntarily unemployed. The father had appealed from the lower court’s child support order claiming that the lower court had made a mistake in concluding as a…
Often people assume that if alimony is awarded, a husband will have to pay it to his ex-wife. However, based on consideration of certain statutory factors, alimony can also be awarded to an ex-husband and a wife may be required to pay it. In a recent North Carolina alimony appellate…
A 529 Savings Plan allows parents to put aside money for their kids’ college expenses under tax-favorable conditions. How should trial courts classify the money in a 529 Savings Plan that is created and funded during marriage when a couple is getting a divorce? In a recent North Carolina marital…
In a recent appellate court decision that discusses an aspect of North Carolina custody law, a mother appealed from an order that granted her and the father joint custody of teenage children pending the start of a reunification program. The program was supposed to fix the kids’ relationship to their father,…