Sign Maine Banking Separation Agreement Online

Esign separation agreement

welcome back to the show tonight's topic is all about separation and divorce and what you need to know if you're going through this situation so Andrew before the break we were talking about how to pick the right lawyer if you can finish off that point after you do pick your lawyer what happens then well it depends on your case ideally your lawyer will write a letter to the other party if they don't have a lawyer saying we'd like to negotiate we'd like to resolve the dispute saying what the issues are and suggesting how we can move forward the problems happen when somebody ignores you because if somebody ignores you how do you get their attention mm-hmm and usually that regrettably means you have to start a court action because someone get my letter and throw it in the garbage and say I don't really care what Andrew Feldstein has to say but if I start a court action and I take them to court now they have to deal with me and hopefully that will still get the ball rolling to negotiate a resolution okay so let's talk about the two separate scenarios because I know that you can figure out sort of your separation process privately or like you're refering referring to to the courts so what if you have decided to separate with your spouse but you two are on somewhat mutual good terms let's talk about that scenario they come to you and they say Andrew you know we both decided to go our separate ways but we want to settle privately what happens in that case well people need to have their own lawyer so two people can't come in and hire one lawyer because my loyalty can only be to my client it can't be to both sides so each side will have their own lawyer it doesn't matter if they have a mutual decision separate lawyers separate lawyers no matter what they can each send directions to their client to the lawyer in a meeting or by email telling us the nature of the agreement that they want and as long as they've provided financial disclosure and the deal seems reasonable we'll do it what do I mean by that they have to give their tax returns they have to give a list of their assets and liabilities preferably in a sworn statement the reason that's the case is the family law it says you must give financial disclosure you can't waive it you can't say I don't want it and there's a decision from the Ontario Court of Appeal that is very strong on that point that says you can't waive it so we're very concerned that our clients will always give it because that's important for a deal and then if the clients instruct us to that they want to do a deal the deal has to be reasonable what do I mean by that if I have somebody come into my office who's been married for 20 years has been a stay-at-home parent for the last 20 years they have no income yeah and they say kids are staying with me I don't want any spousal support and I don't want any of the assets okay that's a pretty horrible deal I'm not gonna put my name to that I'm not gonna be a party to that kind of deal but if they come in and they have a deal that makes sense and is reasonable that's a great way to save legal fees because at the end of the day what's gonna happen instead of me paying me to negotiate they're just paying my office to draft and make sure that that reflects their wishes and that by far and away is the best result for people if they're able to achieve that mm-hmm so you know through your years of experience is it better if they if a couple just settled privately and on their own terms and not take it to court it's always better court creates conflict stress and it costs a lot of money it's something you don't want to do it's it's realistically it's the last resort and the kids are the ones who will also pay a price if you have kids because they're gonna see mom and dad angry and stressed and the and when you go to court and there's negative statements made about the other ones parenting skills or they're hiding money or they did all sorts of things all of that will resonate for a long time that it will take those people to forgive them like I said before kids are gonna be stressed even if they're adults so I was doing a little bit reading on this topic and I read that in this sort of separation divorce proceedings there's a separation agreement what is that if you can explain to viewers a separation agreement is the document that deals with basically everything other than a divorce what do I mean that can deal with your custody your access all your parenting rights it can deal with how much child support you're paying how much spousal support what amount of money you're gonna pay for the property settlement who gets the houses the household it deals with everything the only thing that won't deal with is the divorce because in order to get divorced you have to go to court but if you have a separation agreement and there's reasonable arrangements made for child support which is can be an impediment to getting your divorce the court will grant the divorce and nobody needs to physically go to court it's all done by lawyers filing paperwork so injury that separation agreement do you advise couples to take notes to have a point form note before they come and see you and then you put together the separation agreement is that done through the works in different ways some clients will come in and they have a very direct idea of where they want their settlement and if it's reasonable as I said well execute on that other clients will come in and the one our opinion as to what we think is reasonable and we educate them as to what we think is reasonable and then they sit down either with a mediator or they sit down with their spouse and they try and work out a deal at first instance on their own and a lot of people successfully do that mm-hmm and that will save money because then they come back and tell us the deal they made now we have some books here laid on the table for this segment can we just quickly talk about about this book because I was briefly just browsing through it and it's a good handout it's a good sort of summary about family law in Ontario it's what you should know about family law and it's a free book that anyone can pick up at any courthouse in the province of Ontario at every court house that has a family court there's something called the family law information center and they can attend the family law information center and they can pick this book up which is what you should know about family law in Ontario mm-hmm I mean that's the industry you've been in for 20 years that's right I mean you've you've seen it all you've seen it all and I mean do you agree that it is an emotional process for families and for couples separation and divorce it's probably the in my view the most emotional event a family will have there can be nothing more traumatic than seeing will I see my children how often will I see my children will I have enough money that I can live in a decent home what can I afford all of those things go to the core of who and what we are and when you're going through this you don't feel that you have any safety or security to know where you're going to be or what you're gonna be like after it's all over right so you know we talked about the scenario you know settling privately trial that's all all different landscape right understand trial is the absolute worst about 1% of cases ever get to trial a lot of cases will go to court and at court we are working on trying to get settlement ins so part of the family court process is you have a case conference in a settlement conference to try and settle your cases and avoid a trial so like you said more complicated I didn't know that 1% 1% 1% very few trials so when we come back from break we'll talk more about I guess the trial scenario and more about separation and divorce stay tuned