In County of Riverside v. Estabrook (2019) 30 Cal.App.5th 1144 , the Court of Appeals addressed many issues involving parentage and child support. The Child Support Services Department (“CSSD”) sought a child support order and genetic testing against an alleged father. The alleged father objected and raised the marital presumption of paternity as his defense. The marital […]

Family Code section 6305 authorizes the family law court to issue mutual restraining orders upon the request of each party, and each party personally appeared and presented written evidence of abuse in an application for relief on a mandatory Judicial Council form. The trial court must also make detailed findings of fact that neither party […]

California guideline child support is determined through the use of the Dissomaster software. In general, the factors that are important to the analysis consist of the parents’ timeshare with the child, each parent’s gross monthly earning, each parent’s tax filing status, healthcare insurance premium and tax deductibles such as mortgage interest and property tax (if […]

Divorces can be expensive and time-consuming. California encourages spouses to try their best settling divorce conflicts as efficiently and quickly as possible. When a spouse tries to drive up the cost of a divorce, then it is considered misconduct. In case of such misconduct, the spouse can be ordered to pay for court costs and […]

People going through a divorce often are confused about how to handle tax filings on April 15th. Oftentimes, they will get a filing extension out of confusion, fear, and intimidation. The three options available to individuals going through a divorce is to file jointly, file separately or file separately but pool community income and post […]

In a recent decision in In re Marriage of Clarke and Akel, the Court of Appeals held that a prenuptial agreement was not enforceable against the husband who drafted the agreement because he was unrepresented and did not have the benefit of the statutory seven-day review period. The law provides that a party to a prenuptial […]

When you sign a USCIS I-864 Affidavit to sponsor an immigrant to the United States, you are swearing to provide financial support to said immigrant for the length of ten years at a certain level above the poverty guideline.  A recent California case, In re Marriage of Kumar, the Court found that the federal obligation […]

In some marriages, pension benefits accumulated from one spouse’s employment may constitute the largest source of income for the spouses.  Moreover, the pension plan itself may be the largest community asset.  There are various situations where the court is called upon to address how the spouses share the future payments from the pension plan as well as the […]