Iroquois County Divorce Attorney and Child Support Definitions

The amount of Monthly Child Support shall be applied in each case unless the court makes a finding that application of the guidelines would be inappropriate, after considering the best interests of the children light of evidence including but not limited to one or more of the following relevant factors:

(a) the financial resources and needs of the child;
(b) the financial resources and needs of the custodial parent;
(c) the standard of living the child would have enjoyed had the marriage not been dissolved;
(d) the physical and emotional condition of the child, and his educational needs; and
(e) the financial resources and needs of the non-custodial parent.

Definitions:

"Net income" is defined as the total of all income from
all sources, minus the following deductions:

(a) Federal income tax (properly calculated withholding or estimated payments);

(b) State income tax (properly calculated withholding or estimated payments);
(c) Social Security (FICA payments);

(d) Mandatory retirement contributions required by law or as a condition of employment;

(e) Union dues;

(f) Dependent and individual health/hospitalization insurance premiums;

(g) Prior obligations of support or maintenance actually paid pursuant to a court order;

(h) Expenditures for repayment of debts that represent reasonable and necessary expenses for the production of income, medical expenditures necessary to preserve life or health, reasonable expenditures for the benefit of the child and the other parent, exclusive of gifts. The court shall reduce net income in determining the minimum amount of support to be ordered only for the period that such payments are due and shall enter an order containing provisions for its self-executing modification upon termination of such payment period.

For further information, please visit your Iroquois County Divorce Attorney, your Lawyer Blog or your Illinois Henry County Divorce Attorney

Winnebago County Divorce Attorney and Child Support

Either or both parents may be ordered to pay reasonable and necessary child support, without regard to marital fault or misconduct. If the official guidelines are not appropriate, the following factors are considered: (1) the financial resources and needs of the child; (2) the standard of living the child would have enjoyed if the marriage had not been dissolved; (3) the physical and emotional conditions and educational needs of the child; and (4) the financial resources, needs, and obligations of both the noncustodial and the custodial parent. The court may require support to include payment of a child’s health insurance premium. Support payments may be ordered to be paid directly to the clerk of the court. There are official guidelines for the amount of support contained in the statute. Illinois Driver’s licenses may be revoked if child support obligations are not met. For further information, please contact your Winnebago County Divorce Attorney or your Stephenson County Divorce Attorney.

Kane County Divorce Attorney and Property Settlements

In Kane County divorces, the property and debt issues are typically settled between the parties by a Marital Settlement Agreement or the property award is actually order and decreed by the Kane County Circuit Court within the Judgment for Dissolution of Marriage.

Illinois is known as an "equitable distribution" state. If the parties are unable to reach a property settlement, the Circuit Court will take the following approach to dividing the various assets; First, there will be a discovery process to classify which property and debt is marital property. It will assign a monetary value on the marital property and debt. Finally, the Court will distribute the marital assets between the two parties in an equitable fashion. Equitable IS NOT equal, but rather what is deemed by the Circuit Court to be fair.

Upon the termination of any marriage, the court shall divide the marital property without regard to marital misconduct in just proportions considering all relevant factors, including: (A) the contribution of each party to the acquisition, preservation, or increase or decrease in value of the marital or non-marital property, including the contribution of a spouse as a homemaker or to the family unit; (B) the dissipation by each party of the marital or non-marital property; (C) the value of the property assigned to each spouse; (D) the duration of the marriage; (E) the relevant economic circumstances of each spouse when the division of property is to become effective, including the desirability of awarding the family home, or the right to live therein for reasonable periods, to the spouse having custody of the children; (F) any obligations and rights arising from a prior marriage of either party; (G) any antenuptial agreement of the parties; (H) the age, health, station, occupation, amount and sources of income, vocational skills, employability, estate, liabilities, and needs of each of the parties; (I) the custodial provisions for any children; (J) whether the apportionment is in lieu of or in addition to maintenance; (K) the reasonable opportunity of each spouse for future acquisition of capital assets and income; and (L) the tax consequences of the property division upon the respective economic circumstances of the parties. For further information, contact your Kane County Divorce Attorney or your DeKalb County Divorce Attorney.

Effingham County Divorce Attorney and Simple Divorces

The requirements for a Simple divorce are typically no children, no maintenance, no real estate and no retirement investments. Few marriages fall into that category. If you have children, you should retain an attorney for the custody and visitation agreements and support orders. Pro se litigants often overlook the simplest things. They will eventually realize that the cost of their mistake is several times what a reasonable attorney would have charged to do the job right in the first place.
The requirements for an "Uncontested" divorce are simple. There should be no arguing or negotiating. An uncontested case is supposed to be a completely negotiated deal for all issues when they enter into an attorney's office. Although numerous divorce cases could be uncontested, one or both parties engages into conduct that will make it a contested divorce. If you your spouse will sign off on a written settlement agreement, the case can go forward. If you have a disagreement over a single item, then you don't have an uncontested divorce. The case probably will gradually become more involved:

Most people facing a divorce:
1) know that their marriage is over but do not have a final agreement on all of the property that was accumulated during the marriage,
2) no time or inclination to put together all the financial information or prepare all the papers to do their own divorce,
3) agree on issues involving the children,
4) no discussion regarding the week-to-week and month-to-month parenting schedule,
5) no discussion regarding who will pay child support and how much it will be,
If you are in the above group, you’re like most people. Your case is like most of the cases that experienced divorce attorneys handle. Most cases can be concluded in less than 90 days. Divorces can be extremely emotional. For further information, contact your Local Effingham County Divorce Attorney or your Local Peoria County Divorce Attorney.

Vermilion County Divorce Attorney and Irreconcilable Differences

In Illinois, to file under "irreconcilable differences" as the grounds for divorce the parties must live "separate and apart" for two years before their case may be concluded. You may file your case while you're still living together, but you must live separate and apart for two years before the divorce can be finalized.

The two-year waiting requirement can be waived if both parties sign a waiver form. However, they must live separate and apart for at least six months before the case may be finalized. For further information, contact your Vermilion County Divorce Attorney or your Effingham County Divorce Attorney.

Sangamon County Divorce Attorney and Mental Cruelty

Mental cruelty isn't defined in the law. The courts, in fact, tend to consider the effect of a harmful action more than the action itself. To sustain an allegation of mental cruelty, there must be more than one occurrence B the law requires that the cruelty be "repeated." The law also requires that there be no provocation for the cruelty. Mental cruelty isn’t always easy to prove. “Mental cruelty” has been defined as “a course of abusive and humiliating treatment, calculated or obviously of the nature to torture, discommode or render miserable the life of the opposite spouse, which conduct actually affects the physical or mental health of the spouse...” For further information, contact your Sangamon County Divorce Attorney or your Macoupin County Divorce Attorney.

Livingston County Divorce Attorney and Health Insurance

Illinois law calls for the parent paying support to also provide health insurance if it is available through his or her employer or on a group basis. A party who is ordered to provide health insurance for a child, but fails to do so, may be liable to the receiving parent for the unpaid premiums and the medical expenses incurred by the child that otherwise would have been covered by the insurance. Because the premium payments are considered to be a kind of child support, if the payments are not paid to the insurance carrier, the court may later order them paid to the custodial parent and will not be viewed as a windfall. For further information, contact your Livingston County Divorce Attorney or your Logan County Divorce Attorney.

Coles County Divorce Attorney and Daycare Expenses

Illinois law does not require, and the court may not require a parent paying child support to also pay for day care expenses. Nevertheless, many parents agree, without any legal authority, that they will share daycare expenses. Many judges get around the law's silence on daycare expenses by requiring non-custodial parents to pay larger amounts of child support large enough to cover daycare expenses. There is no clear cut answer. Appealate cases in Illinois are on both sides with some courts require that the non-custodial parents must pay day care expenses while other courts say the exact opposite. For further information, please visit your Coles County Divorce Attorney or your Edgar County Divorce Attorney.