In a recent survey, 68% of Certified Divorce Financial Analysts (CDFA) contacted from across the country indicated that they have clients who could not afford to get divorced because of recession-related financial problems, with 63% of responding CDFA saying that the number has increased since the previous year. The professionals surveyed believe this will result in delayed or drawn-out divorce proceedings as well as an increase in the number of couples trying to save money through cost-effective alternatives to litigating their divorce in court, such as collaborative divorce and mediation.
Conducted in April 2009, the CDFA survey, summarized on the Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts website, indicated that the ways in which divorce proceedings are handled have changed substantially. With housing prices and IRA values plummeting, divorcing couples are looking for settlements of liquid assets only, and may find themselves in an indefinite holding pattern while they wait for the economy to recover.
73% of respondents said that the current housing market has forced their clients to consider creative solutions to property-division problems if the matrimonial home fails to sell – or would sell for far less than the mortgage. For example, 40 percent of respondents indicate that they have divorcing or divorced clients who have chosen to continue to live in separate areas of the marital home until the house sells or the market improves.
Donald D. Vanarelli, Esq., is an Accredited Professional Mediator and trained collaborative professional, founder of the New Jersey Collaborative Law Group (NJCLG), and currently serves as Chair of the NJCLG’s Education Committee. For more information on divorce mediation or the collaborative divorce process, see our website, at www.vanarellilaw.com, or call our office, at 908-232-7400.
Categories
- Affordable Care Act
- Alzheimer's Disease
- Arbitration
- Attorney Ethics
- Attorneys Fees
- Beneficiary Designations
- Blog Roundup and Highlights
- Blogs and Blogging
- Care Facilities
- Caregivers
- Cemetery
- Collaborative Family Law
- Conservatorships
- Consumer Fraud
- Contempt
- Contracts
- Defamation
- Developmental Disabilities
- Discovery
- Discrimination Laws
- Doctrine of Probable Intent
- Domestic Violence
- Elder Abuse
- Elder Law
- Elective Share
- End-of-Life Decisions
- Estate Administration
- Estate Litigation
- Estate Planning
- Events
- Family Law
- Fiduciary
- Financial Exploitation of the Elderly
- Funeral
- Future of the Legal Profession
- Geriatric Care Managers
- Governmental or Public Benefit Programs
- Guardianship
- Health Issues
- Housing for the Elderly and Disabled
- In Remembrance
- Insolvent Estates
- Institutional Liens
- Insurance
- Interesting New Cases
- Intestacy
- Law Firm News
- Law Firm Videos
- Law Practice Management / Development
- Lawyers and Lawyering
- Legal Capacity or Competancy
- Legal Malpractice
- Legal Rights of the Disabled
- Liens
- Litigation
- Mediation
- Medicaid Appeals
- Medicaid Applications
- Medicaid Planning
- Annuities
- Care Contracts
- Divorce
- Estate Recovery
- Family Part Non-Dissolution Support Orders
- Gifts
- Life Estates
- Loan repayments
- MMMNA
- Promissory Notes
- Qualified Income Trusts
- Spousal Refusal
- Transfers For Reasons Other Than To Qualify For Medicaid
- Transfers to "Caregiver" Child(ren)
- Transfers to Disabled Adult Children
- Trusts
- Undue Hardship Provision
- Multiple-Party Deposit Account Act
- New Cases
- New Laws
- News Briefs
- Newsletters
- Non-Probate Assets
- Nursing Facility Litigation
- Personal Achievements and Awards
- Personal Injury Lawsuits
- Probate
- Punitive Damages
- Reconsideration
- Retirement Benefits
- Reverse Mortgages
- Section 8 Housing
- Settlement of Litigation
- Social Media
- Special Education
- Special Needs Planning
- Surrogate Decision-Making
- Taxation
- Technology
- Texting
- Top Ten
- Trials
- Trustees
- Uncategorized
- Veterans Benefits
- Web Sites and the Internet
- Webinar
- Writing Intended To Be A Will
Vanarelli & Li, LLC on Social Media