The family court’s could grant initial restraining orders, protecting victims of domestic violence, for a period of up to 5 years under family code §6345(a). This includes personal conduct orders, stay-away orders, and residence exclusion orders. What happens if your initial restraining order is about to expire and you continue to have concerns that your…
Couples have different spending habits and different philosophy in handling marital finances. Some spouses are conservative in managing their finances and stick with a budget while other spouses do not even set budgets. What is your exposure if your spouse is a shop-a-holic and runs though his/her credit card like there is no tomorrow? What…
THE family court’s could grant initial restraining orders, protecting victims of domestic violence, for a period of up to 5 years under family code §6345(a). This includes personal conduct orders, stay-away orders, and residence exclusion orders. What happens if your initial restraining order is about to expire and you continue to have concerns that your…
Whenever the support of a minor child, or an adult child for whom support is authorized under §3901 or §3910 of the family code, is at issue, the court may order either or both parents to pay an amount necessary for the child’s support. Family Code §4001. For purposes of child support, a minor child…
Beginning August 2013, the visa availability for F2A category of family based petitions will be current. Historically, the wait for this category was 3-4 years. The F2A category consists of spouses and single children under 21 years old of permanent residents. This means a permanent resident can now petition their spouse and simultaneously file an…
Parents that are going through divorce and legal separation sometimes have to make a decision to move out of state for various reasons. It may be because their family network is in another state. This decision often have a significant impact on the visitation of the other parent because it would be more difficult for…
The Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendments of 1986 (IMFA) requires an alien obtaining a green card through a marriage less than two years old to come back at the end of that two years with the petitioning spouse and show that they are still married or, if the marriage was terminated, to show that the marriage…
The decision to terminate one’s marriage typically brings to the forefront many issues all at once. Issues pertaining to property, support, and child custody need to be addressed in a divorce proceeding. In a long term marriage especially, these issues are often heavily litigated between the spouses, and can take a significant amount of time…
The decision to terminate one’s marriage typically brings to the forefront many issues all at once. Issues pertaining to property, support, and child custody need to be addressed in a divorce proceeding. In a long term marriage especially, these issues are often heavily litigated between the spouses, and can take a significant amount of time…
It is a common situation specially within the Filipino community in California to listen to paralegal marketing about “Quick” Nevada divorces. Since there is no divorce in the Philippines, many Filipinos come to the US still married to their spouse in the Philippines. After settling in the US, some Filipinos in this situation end up meeting an American boyfriend or…
Consider the common divorce scenario where the divorce judgment provides primary custody of the children to one spouse while the other spouse only gets visitation. The parties begin to file separate tax returns. What are the tax consequences of the non custodial parents with regards to claiming the children in his or her return? A…
ON January 2, 2013, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano today announced the posting of a final rule in the Federal Register that reduces the time US citizens are separated from their immediate relatives (spouse, children and parents), who are in the process of obtaining visas to become lawful permanent residents of the United States…
IN PREVIOUS editions of this article, the process of obtaining permanent residence through marriage was explored. Discussion of that procedure began with the supposition that the couple was married, and continued with the various steps to ultimately gain permanent residence. In many cases, however, a problem exists in even getting to the point at which…
The duties owed between spouses in the management and control of community property are the same with regard to those in a fiduciary relationship. The marital entity is one with the greatest degree of confidence. This confidential relationship imposes a duty of the highest good faith and fair dealing on each spouse, and a duty…
One of the major assets a divorcing couple usually has, other than real estate property, are retirement benefits such as company pensions, 401k, and other deferred compensation. The problem in determining how much community property interest in the retirement benefit arises when the employee spouse worked at a particular employer longer than the period of…
The economic crisis and changes in immigration legislation has made it more difficult to pursue certain traditional paths to obtaining permanent residency in the United States. Employment based immigration has been affected by long wait time in priority under the EB3 category. H1-b visas has been affected by is a viable option if the immigrant…
WHEN the marital relationship sours to the point where one or both spouses believe that the marriage cannot be salvaged, three remedies are available to terminate or alter the marital status: dissolution, nullity, and legal separation. Under Family Code Sec. 2300, dissolution of marriage can be attained and the “single” status of spouses restored by…
It is typical, if not natural, for Parties to a divorce case to start hiding assets and income from each other as soon as divorce is anticipated. Spouse’s are thinking ahead of the game on how they can outsmart the other spouse so that they end up with the larger portion of the pie. This…
The wait time for immigrant petitions to become “current” under most family based preference categories often takes a long time. During this long waiting period, it is common for derivative beneficiaries to end up aging out and unable to obtain their green cards along with the principal beneficiary (the parents). Aging out occurs when the…
DHS current policy is to focus its enforcement resources on the removal of individuals who pose a danger to national security or a risk to public safety, including individuals convicted of crimes with particular emphasis on violent criminals, felons, and repeat offenders, DHS will exercise prosecutorial discretion as appropriate to ensure that enforcement resources are…
Thinking about one’s demise is not something people want to spend time thinking about. However reality is that we all have to face this one day. It is just a matter of whether you depart this world prepared or unprepared. If you pass away with at least $100,000 in gross assets and you do not…
THE purpose of spousal support is not defined by the legislature in that its purpose varies according to the facts and circumstances of each case. The facts and circumstances of a particular case may be such which call for no spousal support, or for support for a very limited period of time, with the purpose…
DHS current policy is to focus its enforcement resources on the removal of individuals who pose a danger to national security or a risk to public safety, including individuals convicted of crimes with particular emphasis on violent criminals, felons, and repeat offenders, DHS will exercise prosecutorial discretion as appropriate to ensure that enforcement resources are…
It is very common for beneficiaries of family based petition to wait many years before their petition’s priority date becomes current. This is usually the case with US Citizen parent petitions to adult son or daughter. This is also common among petition’s between Siblings. What happens when the Petitioner dies? Are all those years of…
A petition for nullity of a marriage is based on an allegation that an impediment existed at the time of the marriage that prevented the marriage from ever existing. Whereas a petition for dissolution of a marriage typically alleges that some issue arose during the marriage that precludes it from continuing further (i.e. “irreconcilable differences”),…
California law on the nature of spouses’ rights and obligations with respect to management and control of community property has evolved over the last thirty years from less stringent “good faith” standards to heightened “confidential duty” and “fiduciary duty’ standards. Under current law, the duties owed between spouses in transactions between themselves are the same…
It is very disheartening to witness children of immigrants work so hard to obtain good grades in school, achieve honor roll standing in high school, get accepted to top universities, only to find out that all doors to the American Dream are closed and locked. On June 15, 2012, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano…
Since 1938, US immigration regulations have provided for the automatic revocation of the approved visa petition upon the death of the Petitioner. However, immigration regulations since 2006 provided that automatic revocation provisions does not apply to a spousal immediate relative petition if the deceased petitioner and the alien widower had been married at least two…
THIS is a common question among people contemplating divorce in California when the other spouse does not live in the state. The California Courts has the power to grant a divorce, annulment, or legal separation if either party is domiciled in the state. Domicile is where a person lives and intends to remain. However, there…
When the marital relationship sours to the point where one or both spouses believe that the marriage cannot be salvaged, three remedies are available to terminate or alter the marital status: dissolution, nullity, and legal separation. Under Family Code Sec. 2300, dissolution of marriage can be attained and the “single” status of spouses restored by…
