Originally Posted by zzrmark

This is a bone of contention for me.

Florida is a 'no-fault' state, 50/50 assets, time with kids, etc.

My wife came out of her divorce with all but nothing, despite the state rules. Her ex-husband was supposed to be paying $800 a month child support, look after the kids 50% of the time, he was supposed to have refinanced the house to remove her liabilities and met other terms of the agreed divorce.

She hasn't seen a penny in child support, the kids live with us full time and will not see their father (their decision, not ours), not only was the house not refinanced but my wife signed a quit-claim at the time of the divorce which means she is still liable for all debts on the property if he defaults but she has no claim whatsoever on the property.
On a positive note this was my first year filing taxes in the US and I encouraged her most strongly to claim tax relief for the eligible child - until this year her ex-husband had claimed for the child despite not living with him.

In short, it doesn't matter what provisions are in place, either by mutual agreement, state laws or pre-nups, if one party decides to be an ass the only recourse is the courts, which costs money and then repeating the process ad infinitum when the ass doesn't cough up. My view was that she should have borne the costs of representation and kicked his butt through the courts (again, bearing in mind a judgement has already been ignored) because she would have come out the other side far better suited to financially supporting two grown children. (How long are the blighters entitled to hang around nowadays anyway? Whatever happened to the good old days when children wanted to leave home at 17???)

Originally Posted by petitefrancaise

It's not so much the "property" issue but the on-going maintenance/financial support which I think is a bit of a shocker sometimes.

One friend last year was advised to do whatever she needed to do to ensure that her husband didn't file before their 20th wedding anniversary as she would get considerably more after that.

I read last week that women file for bankruptcy more than men. The reason? The blokes don't pay the money they have been told to in the divorce settlement. In France, if you don't pay the maintenance, then you go to jail.

Originally Posted by petitefrancaise

fair enough.
As another of the posters here pointed out, in the US you can reach an agreement with your spouse alone; you can go to mediation and arrive at an agreement; you can use lawyers to help you mediate; you can use lawyer or you can end up in court for the judge to decide based on what you present to them and how they are feeling that day!

By all accounts you should avoid the courts.

If you have "retained" a lawyer then the other party needs a lawyer to represent them. Certain procedures - like "disclosure" (of assets) will be done via lawyers.

Unless you have an amicable divorce or you end up in court, it is highly advisable to use your own lawyer. Certainly in Texas, if you ended up with the minimum state-mandated amount you'd be in a very difficult position indeed.

I don't know anyone who managed to get legal financial aid for their divorce.

From what I've heard from a couple of friends (divorced in the last year) you need to have an immediate retainer of $5000 for the lawyer to take you on. An ex-pat friend was asked for $10,000 - it ended up being $80k for her costs alone.

The costs involved are staggering. I remember being astonished in France that the average divorce cost €18k.

Another friend here (I'm THAT age....) is paying her lawyer on an as-needed basis, the husband doesn't have a lawyer yet. She will use a financial advisor who is a specialist in divorce finances to arrive at a couple of "fair" financial settlements which will be presented to her husband. Once they've agreed which way to go, the lawyer will draw up the documents and that will be their settlement and decree. She estimates total costs to be about $15k. No fighting, minimal lawyers. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for their family.

Originally Posted by Bob

Just curious how/if it happens in other states, but in MA, one way they enforce child support comes in when you renew your drivers license.

Any delinquent child support payments or driving related tickets that aren't paid, you aren't able to renew your license.

If you don't get it sorted within a couple of weeks of the license expiring, the car registration is automatically voided and a voided registration automatically voids the car insurance.

Getting pinged by the cops suddenly gets very expensive. This of course doesn't really help much if one is illegal and doesn't have a valid license to begin with.

Originally Posted by augigi

You betcha we got a pre-nup agreement before we married (me Aus citizen and now US PR, him USC). Being late 30s when I married, with significant assets, we both felt it was smart to protect our interests in the case of divorce. Had to have separate lawyers but mine drew everything up and his just reviewed it so didn't charge much time. Ended up costing around $1500 all up and I consider it money well spent. It made us have to discuss several issues and scenarios we hadn't actually even considered.