Family Law, Divorce, Custody and Child Support Attorneys in Denver, Colorado

Race to the Locksmith

It would be nice if the legislature or the courts would find some consistent mechanism for helping us determine who gets to keep the house. Unfortunately, they’ve been no help.

Let’s be clear. A “Race to the Locksmith” is almost always a colossal mistake. Legally, courts may get very upset with a party who takes matters into their own hands like this. These actions may violate the automatic injunction that goes into place upon the filing of a divorce, as well. But most importantly, in our opinion, a “race to the locksmith” irrevocably raises the conflict level of a case in a significant way. It takes the natural fear of losing important things in a divorce and makes it real, if only on a temporary basis. A party’s natural fear translates into unmitigated anger and rage, never to be undone.

But then again, there are tragically metro area judges who will do nothing to punish, limit, or prohibit “race to the locksmiths” cases. Rather than Denver divorce lawyers being able to tell you that a “race to the locksmith” WILL result in significant punishment in court, and that its better to negotiate to agreement, or submit it to the judge on a forthwith basis, lawyers are left unsure of whether a court will punish – or endorse – this nonsense.

Good lawyers will do everything they can to negotiate this issue to agreement, recognizing the permanent legal and personal damage such actions may inflict.

(3 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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Consequences of Moving Out

If you decided you’re the one who is moving out while the divorce is underway, you may naturally worry about consequences of this choice. And there may be some. Even though everyone may agree that your choice is temporary and is not going to be used to settle anything final at the end of the divorce, its naive to think this choice won’t have impact.

For example, if you have children and you decide to move out and relocate across town, it may be unreasonable to expect that you would be selected as the primary residential custodian. Also, if final possession of the marital home is a question and both parties are able to afford all costs associated with it, it may be likewise unreasonable to expect to be awarded the home after you’ve been living months, or years, at another location. Not that these outcomes are impossible – they just become less probable.

(3 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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Can’t Afford to Move Out?

During these tight times, families are often just getting by paying one set of bills.  When a divorce occurs, and one party seeks to move out, it becomes a serious challenge to try and make the ends meet with two sets of bills.  Going from one set of bills to two sets is a huge difficulty for families in divorce and there is no easy solution.

Divorce courts can only slice up the pie so many ways and aren’t particularly helpful finding solutions to this dilemma.  Judges will often enter support orders of one kind or another, and include a temporary division of debts such as mortgages and attorney fees, but they can’t wring more money from the tree any more than the parties can.

Solutions tend to come from the parties, their extended family and friends.  Sometimes, personal loans from family members make the difference.  Sometimes a spouse will move in with their extended family or with a friend.  But there’s no doubt this is the “rainy day” that we all should have saved for and for which friends and family are best suited to help out, at least in the short term.

Even in these tough times, though, we sometimes see a spouse move out and begin their mid-life crisis with an extravagant spending spree.  A huge new big screen TV, a fancy new car, a trip to Vegas, whatever it might be.  If a divorce has already been filed, these spending sprees tend to violate the Automatic Injunction that goes into effect upon the filing, thus resulting in possible penalties and sanctions.  If no divorce has been filed yet, it can be a different matter.

(3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)

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