Transferring Personal Property Between Spouses – Life Insurance Transferring Life Insurance – This is the third installment of a five-part blog series on transferring personal property between divorcing spouses. The first blog discussed the steps involved in transferring ownership of financial instruments (i.e. bank accounts, etc.) while last week’s blog dove into transferring ownership of…
Read articleAs we discussed in last week’s blog, transferring personal property between divorcing spouses is not as simple as handing that property over to your spouse and walking away. Perhaps the property in question is in your name only, or in the name of both spouses. Maybe the property has a lien against it. Whatever the…
Read articleTransferring Personal Property Between Spouses – financial instruments When personal property is awarded to one spouse in a divorce decree, the answer is not always as simple as handing that property over to your former spouse and walking away. Perhaps the property in question is in your name only, or in the names of both…
Read articleWhat You Should Know About Separate Property As we’ve learned from previous articles, separate property belongs to one spouse – meaning, it was obtained before the marriage existed, received through inheritance, or as a gift. There is no split ownership between the spouses, and a court cannot legally award what already has been confirmed as…
Read articleDecision Time: 3 Ways A Court Divides Community Property Seldom can we make a decision in our personal lives – a good decision, anyway – without first having all the facts in front of us. Well the court system clearly works the same way, and now that the court hearing your divorce case has been…
Read articleProperty Division: How does a court determine what is Just and Right? We have written many times about the phrase “just and right” in terms of the division and confirmation of marital property. That’s because unlike some states where community property is split evenly between both spouses, Texas is a community property state. Its courts…
Read articleDoes the court hearing your divorce case have full jurisdiction? When divorcing, if spouses cannot agree on a fair and equitable division of marital property, they rely on the court to decide who gets what. That seems like a full proof way of settling the argument, right? Well, yes and no. Simply put, courts have…
Read articleSuit for Sibling Access – In certain circumstances, a situation may arise where an older sibling requests to gain access to, or custody of, a younger sibling. We have written at great length about conservatorship suits, so this blog will strictly stick to suits for sibling access. For a review of conservatorship suits, go here…
Read articleSome final thoughts on termination suits As part of our ongoing conversation on termination suits, I think it’s important to look at the effect a terminated parent-child relationship has on certain legal rights. Simply put: terminating a parent-child relationship does not completely sever all rights and duties between a parent and child. Below is a…
Read article
Termination Suits (Part II) To round out our blog conversation on a court’s decision to terminate the parent-child relationship, I think it’s important to discuss certain situations where the court may permit a parent whose parental rights have been terminated to have contact with their child. Again, the primary goal of a termination suit is…
Read article