If you are getting divorced in Texas, enlisting the aid of a Texas divorce attorney is the best way to ensure that you come away from your marriage with as many of the things that are most important to you as possible. Divorce is a legal process, and there are rules that must be followed. There is also a lot of room for couples to choose how they will settle their divorce cases, within the framework that is provided by those rules. Your divorce attorney is an expert guide who knows the divorce process inside and out, and who is there to help you make decisions throughout the course of your divorce that are likely to bring you to a favorable resolution of your case. The following tips can help you to make the most out of your relationship with your Texas divorce attorney.

When you decide to get divorced, you may develop ideas about what you expect to get out of it. These ideas may be things that you simply feel as though you are entitles to, or they may be based upon information that you know about what friends, family members, or others have gotten in their divorce cases. Each divorce case is unique, so each couple’s divorce has a different result, one that is based upon their unique circumstances. Your attorney can provide you with valuable guidance about what you might realistically be able to obtain during your divorce, as far as assets, parenting time, and the like.

As is the case with any type of legal matter, divorce clients often have a lot of questions. Your divorce is an important part of your life, and your attorney understands that. If you have a question, ask your attorney, because not only will you get the information that you need, your questions may actually help your attorney to provide you with the best representation that they possibly can.

When you work with a Texas divorce attorney, it may seem like your attorney asks you to provide them with a lot of information. You may not want to give them all of that information, either out of a concern for your privacy or because you think that they do not need all of it. However, you must provide your attorney with any and all information that they ask you to provide. If you have concerns, ask them why they need specific information, and they will explain it to you.

A Texas divorce attorney can help you to obtain a settlement or court decision in your divorce case that will provide you with many of the things that are important to you. Texas Divorce Attorney Alex Tyra can help you to understand the divorce process, as well as the options that are available to you for resolving your divorce case. If you have questions or concerns regarding your Texas divorce, please call our office today, at (903) 753-7499.

If you are contemplating a divorce, you may be learning what seems like a new language. As you educate yourself about divorce and gather information that will help you in making a decision about whether to file for divorce, you will encounter new concepts and add terms to your working vocabulary that you just didn’t know much about before divorce was on your mind. One concept that is certainly worth becoming familiar with is the concept of mediation.

In mediation, attorneys help their clients to come up with a divorce agreement that works well for both parties. This runs contrary to what some people think divorce is all about. Some of the more highly publicized divorce cases are high conflict situations which end up being resolved through litigation. In reality, litigated divorces represent only a small portion of all divorce cases. Many divorces are settled through agreement, and the mediation process is a way through which this can be accomplished.

Mediation can address whichever issues are part of a couple’s divorce, including property division, parental responsibilities, parenting time, child support, spousal support, and anything else that must be resolved. Couples who resolve their divorces through mediation often report that they believe that they experienced less stress than they would have if they had resolved them through litigation. They also report a high level of satisfaction with the outcomes of their divorces. This may be because they were able to divide their assets in a way that worked for them, instead of having to abide by an order that was issued by a court that knew very little about them.

When a couple has children, there is an even greater incentive to use mediation to resolve their divorce. When divorce follows an adversarial path, one party’s gain is the other’s loss. Parents fight with each other to get more parenting time, sole parental responsibilities, or greater awards of child support, often losing sight of the best interest of the children along the way. Mediation offers parents an opportunity to structure their parenting schedules and divide parental responsibilities in a way that meets their family’s needs, instead of having a judge impose schedules and responsibilities for them.

Mediation is a great way to reduce the stress and conflict of your Texas divorce case while increasing the odds that both you and your soon to be former spouse will walk away from your marriage satisfied with the outcome. Texas Family Law Attorney Alex Tyra can help you to pursue the resolution of your divorce case in a way that meets your needs. If you decide to try mediation for your divorce and it does not appear as though you and your soon to be former spouse will be able to reach an agreement, I have the skills and experience required to present a convincing case in court. If you have a question about mediation or any other aspect of your Texas divorce, please call Attorney Alex Tyra today, at (903) 753-7499.

If you are contemplating a divorce, you may be learning what seems like a new language. As you educate yourself about divorce and gather information that will help you in making a decision about whether to file for divorce, you will encounter new concepts and add terms to your working vocabulary that you just didn’t know much about before divorce was on your mind. One concept that is certainly worth becoming familiar with is the concept of mediation.

In mediation, attorneys help their clients to come up with a divorce agreement that works well for both parties. This runs contrary to what some people think divorce is all about. Some of the more highly publicized divorce cases are high conflict situations which end up being resolved through litigation. In reality, litigated divorces represent only a small portion of all divorce cases. Many divorces are settled through agreement, and the mediation process is a way through which this can be accomplished.

Mediation can address whichever issues are part of a couple’s divorce, including property division, parental responsibilities, parenting time, child support, spousal support, and anything else that must be resolved. Couples who resolve their divorces through mediation often report that they believe that they experienced less stress than they would have if they had resolved them through litigation. They also report a high level of satisfaction with the outcomes of their divorces. This may be because they were able to divide their assets in a way that worked for them, instead of having to abide by an order that was issued by a court that knew very little about them.

When a couple has children, there is an even greater incentive to use mediation to resolve their divorce. When divorce follows an adversarial path, one party’s gain is the other’s loss. Parents fight with each other to get more parenting time, sole parental responsibilities, or greater awards of child support, often losing sight of the best interest of the children along the way. Mediation offers parents an opportunity to structure their parenting schedules and divide parental responsibilities in a way that meets their family’s needs, instead of having a judge impose schedules and responsibilities for them.

Mediation is a great way to reduce the stress and conflict of your Texas divorce case while increasing the odds that both you and your soon to be former spouse will walk away from your marriage satisfied with the outcome. Texas Family Law Attorney Alex Tyra can help you to pursue the resolution of your divorce case in a way that meets your needs. If you decide to try mediation for your divorce and it does not appear as though you and your soon to be former spouse will be able to reach an agreement, I have the skills and experience required to present a convincing case in court. If you have a question about mediation or any other aspect of your Texas divorce, please call Attorney Alex Tyra today, at (903) 753-7499.

As you work your way through your Texas divorce, you may sometimes feel as though you are learning to speak in a different language. While this is not entirely true, it is easy to understand how many people may feel that way because the divorce process does have its own language of sorts. The language of divorce includes all of the general legal terms that are not often used outside of a legal context, legal words that are unique to the practice of divorce law and many other words from a diverse collection of topics including psychology and finance.

One of the words that you may hear during your Texas divorce is QDRO, which is often pronounced “qua-dro”, but is sometimes pronounced “q-dro” or “Q.D.R.O.”. Whichever way you say it, the term refers to a document called a Qualified Domestic Relations Order. The name of the document only goes so far in telling you want the document does, though. Because it is an Order, you can know that it is a document that is issued by the court. Since it is a Domestic Relations Order, that tells you that it is an Order related to a family law proceeding. Simply stated, a QDRO is an Order which is issued by the family court after a divorce proceeding for the purpose of dividing an employer-sponsored retirement account between spouses.

While the purpose of a QDRO is fairly simple, QDROs themselves can be complex. In order for a QDRO to fulfill its purpose, that is, to effectuate a division of all or part of an employee-sponsored retirement account between parties who have divorced, it must accomplish several things simultaneously. First, a QDRO must be appropriate for the type of retirement account that it seeks to divide. Retirement plans like 401ks and pensions have rules regarding QDROs, and if a QDRO is issued which does not comply with a plan’s rules, the plan administrator cannot make any distributions to any alternate payees, such as the non-employee former spouse. Also, a QDRO must comply with the divorce decree that has been issued by the court. For example, if the entire amount of money that was in one spouse’s 401k was determined by the court to be community property and the divorce decree specified that the 401k was to be split evenly between the divorced parties, the QDRO must also state that fifty percent of the 401k is to be attributed to the employee and fifty percent is to be attributed to their former spouse.

To make matters slightly more complicated, your QDRO may need to account for the fact that you or your spouse had been contributing to the retirement account before the marriage, in which case a portion of the account may not be community property. It is also possible that the division of the 401k may be something other than a fifty – fifty split because of the way that you and your soon to be former spouse choose to divide up all of your other assets. QDROS can address both of the above issues, as well as any others that are unique to your situation.

As with every other aspect of your divorce, the task of preparing your QDRO deserves the skill and attention of an experienced Texas Family Law Attorney. If you have a question about QDROs or any other aspect of your Texas divorce, please call Attorney Alex Tyra today, at (903) 753-7499.

The collection of assets in a couple’s marital estate is as unique as the people who own them. When spouses decide to part ways, some collections of items may easily be dealt with as part of the couple’s property distribution because the items are much more important to one spouse than to the other. For example, you may want nothing to do with your spouse’s collection of antique tools, and your spouse may have no interest in your collection of Hummel figurines. In these situations, where spouses agree as to which of them should keep a particular item or group of items, an accurate assessment of the value of each item is often all that is needed for the items to be accounted for as part of the couple’s proposed property distribution.

Sometimes, items or collections of items are more difficult to divide. Couples who own art together often disagree about who should get to keep each piece. People buy art because it is beautiful or meaningful to them, and when two people choose a piece together to display in their home, it is often because both of them agree on its beauty or significance. Also, some pieces of art are very valuable, which can make them difficult to fit into the overall property distribution scheme because the end result must be “just and right”, which often means that each spouse receives roughly the same dollar amount worth of property.

Texas is a community property state, so both spouses have an ownership interest in the property and income that either of them acquired during the marriage. Some items, such as items that were owned by a spouse prior to the marriage or which were acquired by a spouse as a gift or inheritance may be considered that spouse’s separate property. Unless an item is specifically excluded from the couple’s collection of marital property because it can be classified as one spouse’s separate property, it will be disposed of through the property division process.

Divorcing couples who own art should take care to ensure that its disposition is handled properly. This includes working with a Texas Family Law Attorney who is skilled in handling property division issues. Another essential action step in dealing with the disposition of your art collection is making an inventory of the entire art collection, including information about when and how each piece was acquired and, of course, photographs and current appraisals for each piece.

Each divorcing couple has unique concerns in the area of property distribution. An experienced Texas Family Law Attorney can help you work through all of your property division concerns, whether your collection of marital property includes art, real estate, investment, retirement accounts, or other types of assets. To learn more about property division or other aspects of your Texas divorce, call attorney Alex Tyra today at (903) 753-7499. Alternatively, you may schedule a consultation by filling out a contact form on our website.

There are many things that change for a couple as they move from being married to being divorced. During the divorce process, they will navigate changes in residence and family time, and, of course, drastic changes in their financial situations. Many people do have trouble with their finances before, during, and after divorce. Fortunately, there are things that you can do, even if you begin your divorce on shaky financial footing, to maintain financial stability throughout the divorce process and set yourself up for post-divorce financial success.

Dealing with debts is an unpleasant but extremely important aspect of divorce. One way that you can reduce the likelihood that debt will continue to be a problem for you after your marriage ends is to avoid incurring any new debt, if at all possible. Also, if you can, pay off some of your debts. Although it may seem tempting to put a hold on paying off debts until you (or the court, if you do not reach an agreement) decide which of you will be responsible for each of your marital debts, those debts pose a threat to your financial stability until they are paid off. If your spouse accepts responsibility for a debt as part of your property settlement, or if the court decides that they should pay that debt as part of the property settlement and they fail to pay it, the creditor can still try to collect payment from you. Getting rid of as much debt as possible reduces the chance that this will happen.

Navigating a change in financial resources is challenging, to say the least. Add to that the expense of transitioning from one household into two, and it becomes even more daunting. As you set up your independent living arrangements, challenge yourself to find as many ways to save money as you can. For example, if you need to rent a place to live, don’t jump on the first place that you see. Make a list of the features that you need, as well as the size and location that you desire, and shop around. The same goes for services like cell phone, internet, and utilities. You are starting fresh, so be sure that you select only the products and services that fit your needs as you move forwards into your new life.

If your spouse proposes a property settlement to you, go over it carefully with your attorney before you decide whether or not to agree to it. Make sure that you fully understand both the present and future effects that accepting the settlement offer would have on your finances, including any tax savings or liabilities that would be associated with dividing the property as proposed. If a settlement will meet your needs, accepting it may be a good way to avoid the expense of costly divorce litigation that could result in you receiving a property settlement that does not meet your needs.

Set yourself up for post-divorce financial success by opening a separate bank account for yourself and establishing credit in your name. After your divorce has become final, carefully check each of your insurance policies to make sure that they list the proper beneficiaries. Get rid of any policies on cars, real estate, or other things that no longer belong to you. Also, make sure that all joint credit cards are cancelled and all joint bank accounts are closed, and the proceeds are distributed according to your property settlement.

While you take steps to ensure a solid financial future for yourself, your Texas Family Law Attorney can help you pursue a property distribution that will meet your current and future needs. If you have questions about the effect of divorce on your finances, or any other issues related to your divorce or family law case, please contact attorney Alex Tyra today, to schedule your free consultation. We can be reached at (903) 753-7499, or you may visit us online to submit a convenient online contact form.