October 2003

A Note from Zoe

My own personal soap box topic for the month: Credit! Do your marriage a big favor and get rid of as many credit cards as you can. I see so many divorces come through my door in which stress over debt is a very big issue. Simply put: buy less. Credit card companies and lenders for automobiles will lend you money even when you cannot afford it.

Don’t take out a home equity loan even if the rates are enticing. Don’t buy a new car until you can pay cash for it. Don’t go to Rooms to Go and buy a houseful of furniture in one fell swoop and pay no interest until 2006! You don’t even know if you will be employed in 2006.

I hesitate to be judgmental (but just for a second); however, I see many families who have no idea how to spend less. I know people who make $60,000 to $100,000 per year, and yet they are “broke.” That is nuts. They also have late model cars with enormous car payments every month. They also have a motorcycle. And a second mortgage for that pool they built. Maybe also a lot of credit card debt.

I observed a hearing in family law court a few weeks ago where the mom was asking for the court to declare that she was indigent so that she would be eligible for a court-appointed lawyer. She makes $36,000.00 per year and receives child support. Indigent? Not! Overspent? Yes! Her car payment alone was about $500 per month.

Well, you get the picture. Look at it this way if it helps you: On the one hand, driving the newest SUV on the other, staying married.

Bird-Nesting Visitation

Most of you have probably heard something about the Standard Possession Order for visitation in Texas, or at least know someone who gets the first, third and fifth weekends of each month with their kids. In that situation, the kids move from dad’s house to mom’s house or vice verse.

One of the alternative ways to handle where the children will live in a divorce is what is known as “bird-nesting.” In this plan, the kids stay in the family home and mom and dad do the visiting. Mom could come to the “kid’s home” Monday through Wednesday for example, and then Dad might come Thursday through Saturday. Sundays they alternate every other week. Great for the kids, right? They get the stability of staying in one home rather than packing for visits to a different home. There is a lot to be said for that.

This situation may work out for a limited period of time. One drawback is that it is expensive to keep the family home and have each parent establish their own respective residences as well. I am sure that you could imagine other problems with this arrangement. It may, however, provide a good solution for some families in some situations. At the very least, it might be a good temporary solution, and will give the parents a lot of empathy for what the kids in the normal visitation arrangement go through in having to move between homes.

Do-It-Yourself Divorces

Even though I make a living representing people who are not doing their own divorces, you gotta trust me on this: DON’T DO YOUR OWN DIVORCE! Hire a lawyer. A great number of my cases involve fixing problems created by orders and decrees prepared by non-lawyers.

Even when you and your spouse agree on all the terms that need to be in the final agreement, you still should not do it yourself. I recently handled a case where the husband and wife used a website that offered a template and blanks to fill in with their information. The decree looked okay to them, and the judge signed it when they took it up to the courthouse. (Judges rarely read or even skim divorce decrees). Only when trouble arose later, and mom wanted to move out of state with the child, did the problems with the “kit” divorce become apparent.

The residence restriction that should have restricted the child’s place to live to a County or a school district, limited the mom to living in the apartment she lived in at the time she signed the decree! That cannot work. So hundreds of dollars in legal fees, and an hour or so in court about the residence restriction finally yielded an amendment to the decree to include the correct residence restriction. Had a lawyer been used to draft the decree in the first place, that kind of mistake would not have been made.

Some of these places are not even in Texas. What’s more, any person or company who is not a licensed attorney who does divorce documents for you and sells or gives them to you is guilty of practicing law without a license, which is punishable by fine and more. That is a topic for another day.

There are low cost divorces available. My fees for straight-forward, uncontested divorces are very reasonable. For example, an uncontested divorce with no kids and no property is currently $350 plus costs. Costs are filing fees which are typically around $180. That price is subject to my approving acceptance of your case and verifying that it is uncontested, and may be changed without notice.

It boggles my mind that sometimes people are willing to spend more on a television than they are on getting their divorce done correctly. It’s up to you. But you gotta trust me on this one.