11/20/2019
News
If you are among the thousands of Floridians who each year seek and are granted a divorce, you know how critical your choice is in selecting the right family law and divorce attorney to represent your interests. Most divorcing couples, who are unable to reconcile their differences know the courts will grant them a divorce if the marriage is irretrievably broken. That in most cases is the easy part, but dividing assets and property, businesses and retirement accounts, military pensions and even personal possessions in a fair and equitable manner is sometimes a different issue. How many times have you heard a horror story about how some poor person got taken to the cleaners by their divorcing spouse? In some cases, dividing up property, bills, savings accounts, and other fiduciary responsibilities is somewhat cut and dry. It’s the personal possessions that most couples jointly share that can be difficult to get agreement on. Oftentimes, decisions that seem to be simple explode into contested nightmares. Most of these issues are not brought about by opposing counsel but by the spouses themselves as retribution for some difficulty they encountered in the marriage or even in the divorce process. Agreements reached between parties are often recanted after some time has passed and one of the spouses has decided not to grant the settlement offer, they had agreed to. Some of the most glaring examples of these cases according to family law and divorce attorney, Hunter Malin of Heekin Law, P.A. arise when attorneys start uncovering facts about the case and unsuspecting spouses are informed of infidelity, hidden assets, or worse, a change of heart during the settlement or mediation process or wanting retribution for one reason or another. One such case comes to mind from Hunter’s vast 23 years of practicing family and divorce law involving a husband who claimed his marriage was so horrible and difficult that even bringing up the subject of getting a divorce was a struggle. Presumably, the husband spent quite a bit of time away from home on business and every time he would return the wife would go through his dirty clothes looking for any signs of him having an affair. She would always greet him at the door with a demand for his cell phone to check text messages and one time even demanded his business computer to see who he had been talking too and what if anything was said about her. Time after time he told his wife that he had never had an affair with anyone and that his trips were purely business and that’s all they were. This went on for a couple of years until finally out of frustration he decided to refuse to give her his cell phone and demanded she stops interrogating him every time he left the house. While he was in town, he often felt she would follow him out of the house to work and even stalking him during his lunch hour. It became so bad that their relationship deteriorated into him moving into a spare bedroom and him pleading with her to seek some professional help about her emotional tirades. Nothing seems to appease her, so finally, out of desperation, he asked her for a divorce and surprisingly she was in complete agreement. It was time for them to separate and finally, he believed his home life was going to be happy again. During the investigation of their financial records it became clear that unbeknownst to the husband, the wife had been secretly involved with a divorced man who as it turned out had coached her on how to get her husband so frustrated by her behavior that he would not notice any expenses she had incurred during their extramarital intimate relationship. The husband was a very successful heavy equipment salesman traveling on trips all around the country. The couple had always had a joint checking and savings account and the wife paid all the bills. The husband thought the rate of their expenses was high, with her belonging to an expensive country club, giving charitable contributions to many recipients and involvement with numerous women’s activities. But the husband had no time or interest in club activities so he never went to any functions or had any experience with any of her friends who did. During the disclosures, it turns out that the wife had been writing checks in varying amounts to many different entities and had subsequently withheld the checks and withdrawn the money and placed it in another bank where she alone had an account. Over a four-year period, she had amassed a tidy sum of over 165,000 dollars’ worth of deposits and withdrawals, leaving a balance of just over 90,000 dollars at the time of the inquiry, while their joint account total worth was never more than 25,000 dollars. Under Florida Law, extramarital affairs are not grounds for divorce but if it can be proven that monies from the marriage were spent in supporting an affair, the court can grant the other party financial restitution. As it turns out the husband was granted the remaining monies amassed in the wife’s separate account and the division of property settlement fell along a fair and equitable distribution.
Knowledgeable divorce attorneys in Jacksonville fl believe; seek and you shall find many answers to questions involving divorcing couples if you know where to look and what to ask. Hunter Malin understands it takes judgment and experience to uncover and reveal all of the aspects and facts in a divorce case. It’s amazing how petty and mean spirited some people can get in a divorce. Maybe it’s the emotional trauma or roller-coaster associated with divorce proceedings that sometimes brings out the worst in people according to Hunter. After 23 years of practicing law, I still get amazed at what people do and what they say even under oath. If you are seeking a divorce or have been served with an action, you need to seek immediate legal representation from an experienced divorce and family law attorney. Protecting your rights in the early stages of a divorce action can help you in all aspects of the divorce settlement. Hunter believes his clients have a right to a secured future and knows that most legal outcomes can be managed with the right attorney asking the right questions and uncovering the truth, protecting and preserving those rights and that of their family. Hunter’s legal consultations are always free. Call us at Heekin Law, P.A. at 904-355-7000.
