A new reported trial court decision, S.N. v. C.R.was released today, confirming that the remedy of partition is still available when non-married parties purchase a home together and there is evidence that the purchase is a joint venture, even if they do not have a writing as required by the 2010 amendment regarding palimony
Most of our cases dealing with enforceability of prenuptial agreements stem from marriages that end by divorce and involve one party seeking to enforce the agreement and the other party seeking to invalidate the same document, or vice versa. You can read about many of those cases on our NJ Family Law Blog. However, the
Over the last several weeks, via emails, attending webinars and otherwise, I have frequently heard that the coronavirus may create significant estate planning opportunities. In fact, while writing this post, I Googled “coronavirus and estate planning opportunities” and got 544 million results in .46 seconds. While I am sure that not all of the results
It is not unusual for deferred compensation (eg. stock options, restricted shares, RSU, REUs, and a whole host of others) to be addressed in marital settlement agreements, either as assets divided in equitable distribution, for purposes of computing income for support, or both. Often the language is complicated and in some agreements it is incomprehensible.
A recent unpublished (non-precedential) decision, Steffens v. Steffens, suggests that the answer to the above question is “no.”
In Steffens, the Wife sought to set aside a prenuptial agreement, arguing that it was unconscionable, in large part because the alimony payments she was to receive under the agreement would not allow her to maintain
An issues that frequently arises is the treatment of an inheritance received by a spouse during the marriage. The basic rule is that any property received via gift or inheritance during the marriage is exempt from equitable distribution. When advising people, to the end of that sentence, I usually add something like, “provided that it
One of the more complex issues we see when addressing alimony and equitable distribution relates to inherited assets and the money (distributions, investment experience, interest, etc.) that emanates from them. Under New Jersey law, inherited assets remain the exempt, separate property of the spouse who inherited same. It cannot be distributed in whole or in
We often deal with cases in which one or both spouses own a business. In many of those cases, a spouse received their interest in a business prior to the marriage, either from a family member, or otherwise. With regard to premarital assets and/or any other assets that a party claims is exempt, that party
Divorces involving a spouse in the military generally involve unique issues. In the recently published decision of Fattore v. Fattore, the Appellate Division held that the trial court cannot replace, “dollar for dollar”, an ex-spouse’s benefit from a military pension that was lost after the military spouse elected to receive disability benefits. Doing so
The issue of the division of deferred compensation in divorce – more particularly, unvested deferred compensation, is often one that is hotly disputed. This is in part because there is not a lot of case law on the issue. The case law is clear that deferred compensation (eg. stock options, restricted stock, RSUs, REUs, etc.)