Author Archives: Jay Butchko
Refinancing a Home Mortgage After Divorce
Deciding which spouse, if either, gets to keep the marital home is often one of the most contentious issues in divorce mediation. Houses are expensive. Most millionaires in the United States only qualify as such because their house is valued at more than a million dollars; many of these millionaires do not have enough… Read More »
Managing Prenuptial Agreement Regret
Love makes us more daring than we otherwise would be. You might know a cautious, risk averse couple who knew each other for less than a year before they got married, but they have stayed married for decades. Something made them take a leap of faith that was out of character for them, and… Read More »
Can Co-Parenting Apps Help You Manage Conflict With Your Ex-Spouse?
The couples who are celebrating their divorce anniversary together, clinking their champagne glasses on Instagram like they did in their wedding photo aren’t telling you the whole truth; they may be smiling for the camera, but they have complicated feelings that don’t come across on social media. The ones who get sloppy drunk with… Read More »
How Does Equitable Distribution of Pet Ownership Work?
Millennials’ memories of the 90s are a fever dream in garish colors, but if you concentrate hard enough, you might remember the incident where Drew Barrymore and Tom Green had a brief marriage, followed by an epic divorce battle over their dog Flossie. It’s all fun and celebrity Schadenfreude until it happens to you. … Read More »
Florida Bigamy Laws
Bigamy is when one person is married to two people at the same time, and in Florida and every other state, it is against the law. On the surface, it is an old-fashioned sounding word that has lost its sting. Lots of people cheat on their spouses; the divorce court does not care which… Read More »
Which Spouse, If Any, Keeps the Marital Home?
As many times as your divorce lawyer may tell you that divorce is not about winning or losing, the marital home can easily feel like a battleground, even if you and your spouse do not resort to childish pranks to antagonize each other like Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston’s characters in The Breakup. Divorce… Read More »
Does Bird Nesting Really Work?
Is bird nesting just an Internet trend, or do people actually do it in real life? If you watch enough videos on social media, you will probably find some people who say that bird nesting after divorce was the best thing that ever happened to their family, and they seem convinced of it. Bird… Read More »
Proposed Legislation Attempts to Clear Up Ambiguities About Florida Divorce
When you are engaged or newly married, people give you all kinds of unsolicited advice, of which a lot is mutually contradictory, and you blissfully tune it out, because you are young and in love. To this day, you cannot remember which of your aunts told you that you should state your boundaries clearly… Read More »
How Do Judges Decide What Is Fair When Determining Equitable Distribution?
No matter where you live, and no matter how wealthy you are, the chances are that you will emerge from your divorce feeling like you suffered heavier financial losses as a result of the breakup of your marriage than your ex-spouse did. People who live in community property states, such as California, base their… Read More »
What Happens to Your Child Support Obligations If You Become Disabled?
Unlike parenting plans, which are based on the parents’ mutually agreed upon preferences or on a judge’s decision about the best interests of the children, child support obligations come down to a mathematical formula. The numbers that go into the formula are the number of overnights per year the children spend with each parent… Read More »
