When one person is ordered to pay alimony (also referred to as spousal support) to the other, it is expected to be paid on time and in full. However, as the past several years have shown, challenges can arise unexpectedly and many people can have unexpected issues...
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Family Law
Child support in New York
Divorce is a legal matter between two spouses. A child custody dispute involves the child as a third party, but it is essentially a legal argument between two parents. At first glance, child support might also seem to be a personal matter between the two parents, but...
The evolution of a father’s rights and shared custody
Images of a family are often equipped with a mother, father, daughter and son. And when that family is separated through divorce, the image changes to a mother with her children in the family home while the father is in a new home that the children visit sporadically....
Preparing for a child support dispute
New York residents who have children—whether through marriage or not—have a legal responsibility to care for those children. For some people, that means paying child support. Obviously, this can be a touchy legal issue, since it directly impacts a person’s finances. A...
Nesting could make co-parenting easier
For parents thinking about divorce or at the beginning stages, your primary concern is likely your children. How do you make this process as easy as possible on them? In recent years, one less-talked-about method is birdnesting or nesting. Birdnesting or nesting...
What if the other parent isn’t sending our child to school?
Many custody orders in New York have different schedules for the summer and the school year. A new school year means you are busier and have additional responsibilities, including making sure your child attends school and getting them to any sports or extracurricular...
Child support orders are not always open and shut
Like other states, New York has child support guidelines in place which courts are supposed to apply when they are setting up or changing a support amount. These guidelines are supposed to ensure that parents and children alike get treated fairly and consistently....
How does my divorce affect beneficiary designations?
You have a lot on your mind when you go through a divorce. You must deal with big issues such as child custody, property division and spousal support, so it’s natural that some things won’t be a priority at this time. But if you’ve designated your spouse as a...
How is child support enforced in New York?
Child support orders often come about during a divorce, but they are in many ways different from issues such as property division and spousal support. Rather than an obligation from one ex-spouse to the other, child support payments are an obligation from a parent to...
Two ways to establish paternity in New York
People sometimes fall in love and have a child with a partner even if they are not married. These loving relationships do not always last, however, leading to a break-up and the child going to live with one parent – commonly the mother. If a mother wants to receive...