Careful Planning Can Dramatically Improve Your Position
If divorce is a possibility in your future, advance planning can help you identify and protect your personal, familial, and financial interests. Once divorce papers have been filed, important documents and assets can disappear.
If you think you will potentially be faced with dealing with a divorce in Texas, Kimberly D. Levi can assure you that careful thought and planning will virtually always inure to your benefit. Whether you are merely interested in gaining an understanding of your rights and the law in Texas in the divorce context or you feel that your spouse is considering the divorce option, gathering information on the subject can only cause you to be better able to handle whatever lies ahead.
If divorce appears unavoidable, accurate information gathering and planning ahead will insure a vast improvement in your legal position. Waiting until the last minute to gain an understanding of what you may be facing will only result in obstacles being placed in your path that give your spouse a distinct advantage if he or she has already become familiar with the lay of the land.
Ms. Levi does not and will not encourage you to become divorced, as that decision can only rest with you or your spouse. However, when a divorce seems inevitable or you suspect that your spouse feels that it has become inevitable, you need quick and accurate information that will aid you in navigating the path with the most success and with the least friction and trauma. The more time you have for planning, the more time you will have to gather the information that you will need to achieve success regarding custody of your children or a favorable division of community property.
Should I File Divorce — Or Wait Until My Spouse Files?
In most cases, success in a divorce suit does not have anything to do with which party filed first. If a case must go to trial, the party who filed for divorce typically gets to present their case first. At times, however, it can truly be more advantageous to be the responding party at the time of final trial since you will get to hear most aspects of your spouse's case first.
One exception, that has nothing really to do with filing first but rather with simple preparation, can be when a divorce matter will involve complicated issues that must be decided at the very beginning of a case on a temporary basis. Such complicated issues may involve temporary child custody or which spouse may have the temporary use of certain property while the divorce is pending.
Typically, a family law litigant in Texas is only entitled to three days' notice of any hearing involving temporary matters (such as temporary child custody or use of property). It is not hard to identify the challenges that might be associated with having only three days' notice (including Saturdays and Sundays!) of an impending court hearing on the custody of your children or on which spouse will be entitled to live in the marital homestead while the divorce is pending. When these issues are anticipated, or are even a possibility, preparation can be the key.
Planning for Your Hearing
As described above, after you or your spouse files for a divorce in Texas, either party can request a temporary orders hearing. During that hearing, the court has the ability to decide, during the pendency of the divorce: who lives in the marital residence, who should have primary custody of the children, what the visitation schedule regarding the children will be, what child support will be paid and by whom, who will have use of which vehicles, and who will be responsible for what bills. The orders will also contain temporary injunctions that order the parties to preserve the "status quo". Such injunctions basically operate to prevent either party from disrupting the normal routines of the children and from hiding money and/or assets while the divorce is pending.
- Learn more about complex property division.
- Learn more about protecting assets and separate property.
- Learn more about child custody and visitation.
Schedule a Lawyer Consultation
To discuss preparing for your divorce or other family law concerns with attorney Kimberly D. Levi, please call 888-324-6330 or fill out the contact form on this site. Ms. Levi has more than 15 years of experience assisting families in finding sustainable solutions for the family in Houston, Texas, and the surrounding area.
