Division of Property

Adulterous Affairs, Dissipation of Marital Assets, and Equitable Distribution in a Maryland Divorce

December 30, 2022 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

One of the more painful experiences a spouse can endure is to devote years — or even decades — to a marriage only to discover that your spouse has not been as faithful to you as you’ve been to them. While heartbreaking and sometimes infuriating, your spouse’s infidelity won’t always have much of an impact on the outcome of your divorce… but sometimes it will affect that outcome in a major way. To determine your rights and options if your spouse has been cheating, you need to speak to a knowledgeable Maryland divorce lawyer.

Maryland is one of the states that recognizes both no-fault divorce and at-fault divorce. One of the grounds for absolute divorce under Maryland law is adultery. Even in a case of a divorce on the ground of adultery, that affair may not “move the needle” much in terms of the financial aspects of the court’s judgment. So, if an adulterous spouse is someone who earns only minimal income with few economic opportunities and little chance of becoming self-supporting and the “innocent” spouse has substantial wealth and income, the adulterous spouse may still be entitled to alimony and/or a monetary award, even if the infidelity was the reasons for the marriage’s breakdown.

There’s one scenario, however, where a spouse’s extramarital affair(s) can have a huge impact on those financial elements of divorce, and that circumstance was illustrated in a recent divorce case originating here in Montgomery County.

Know Before You Go to Sign: The Importance of Getting Legal Advice Before Signing an Agreement Relinquishing Your Right to a Marital Asset

December 16, 2022 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

In this blog, we’ve discussed in the past the importance of consulting a knowledgeable Maryland divorce lawyer before you sign documents like prenuptial agreements, post-nuptial agreements, and marital settlement agreements, which can alter your ownership rights in various marital and/or non-marital assets. As a recent divorce case from Prince George’s County illustrates, even if you’re not signing a prenup or a settlement agreement, the need for experienced counsel exists any time you’re signing something that purports to alter your ownership rights in one or more assets.

The spouses in the Prince George’s County case, R.T. and B.J., married in 1988 and lived in a home in Clinton. 25 years later — in early February 2013 — the husband told the wife he desired to separate and to live in his own home. A few weeks later, the husband approached the wife about buying a residence in Cheltenham that would serve as his home.

The couple decided to execute three contracts, each of which was notarized. Together, the agreements reflected the wife’s intention to relinquish all her rights to the husband’s retirement account and that the husband would relinquish all ownership rights to the residence in Clinton. The husband was not represented by counsel when he signed the documents.

The Value of a Good Legal Advocate in Your Maryland Divorce: It Goes Further Than You Might Think

July 29, 2022 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

A knowledgeable Maryland divorce lawyer can help your case in countless ways. Sometimes, those ways involve in-depth knowledge of the law or the effective use of the pre-trial discovery processes to get key evidence. Other times, a skilled divorce lawyer can help by managing a client’s expectations and giving them strong, unflinching advice about what sort of things can help your case… and which ones almost certainly won’t.

As an example, let’s look at the divorce case of A.T., an Upper Marlboro man whose wife filed for divorce the Monday after Thanksgiving in 2018.

The husband, in response, “did not file an answer, counter complaint, or any pleading requesting relief from the court.”

Dealing With Your Spouse’s Family Business in Your Maryland Divorce

July 15, 2022 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

Family-owned businesses are a staple of the American commercial landscape. Many of these businesses are passed down across multiple generations. Sometimes, though, the family business in question is your spouse’s, not yours. When that happens and you’re divorcing, some or all of that business may be a marital asset subject to equitable distribution. Getting a truly just outcome in that scenario means getting a proper determination of both the business’s status (as marital) and its value. A skilled Maryland divorce lawyer can help go about obtaining that just and appropriate outcome.

A recent example of this kind of divorce case comes to us from Baltimore County. The husband’s parents were successful businesspeople, having run a seafood market and restaurant west of Baltimore since 1963.

The husband and wife married in 2004. In 2005, the husband (“Eric”) and his father (“Bill”) formed a corporation to operate the market and restaurant. Initially, Eric owned 25% of the shares and Bill owned 75%. In January 2006, Bill transferred his shares to Eric and Eric’s sister. That left Eric with 75% ownership and the sister with 25%.

Overcoming Typos and Math Errors in Your Maryland Divorce Judgement to Arrive at a Fair and Equal Result

June 30, 2022 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

“Lawyers often joke that we went to law school because we aren’t good at or don’t like math,” quipped a Maryland Court of Special Appeals judge recently. In a similar vein, a student in a law school seminar once interrupted the instructor who was laying out a math-intensive hypothetical. “Pardon me, Professor, but… we don’t do math. If we did, we wouldn’t be here.” Similar to the Court of Special Appeals Judge’s observation, the student was implying that he and his classmates arrived at law school rather than medical school or engineering school solely as a result of their poor math skills or strong dislike of math. In seriousness, though, math and law can — and do — intersect frequently, especially in divorce cases involving the division of marital assets. When you are in a divorce case where that is a significant issue, your outcome can often be enhanced by having on your side a skilled Maryland divorce lawyer (who may or may not love math.)

The case that spawned the Court of Special Appeals’ observation about math was a recent divorce dispute about retirement assets. The judgment in that divorce action stated that the “parties shall equalize their retirement assets.” To do that, the court instructed the wife to roll over $303,388 from her retirement to the husband’s retirement.

The problem was, as the appeals court put it, “something didn’t add up,” and fortunately for the wife, her legal team spotted it and argued it in her motion to enforce the judgment. Specifically, the wife’s counsel found the presence of a typographical error and deduced that a transfer of $303,388 would not equalize the spouses’ assets. To achieve an equal split, the wife argued, the correct sum should have been $40,000 less, or $263,388.

Valuation of Marital Assets and Monetary Awards in Maryland Divorce Cases

June 16, 2022 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

In many walks of life, people say that “timing is everything.” In civil lawsuits, timing isn’t everything but it definitely is a very important thing. That’s especially true in divorce cases. When it comes to things like alimony and monetary awards, the date used for evaluating the spouse’s assets is key. Sometimes, even just a difference of only a few months can alter the outcome by thousands of dollars. As with any essential detail of your divorce case, a knowledgeable Maryland divorce lawyer can help you identify the correct date and, in the process, get you a fair outcome.

Maryland law requires a trial court, before imposing a monetary award as part of a divorce, to engage in the three steps. First, the judge must identify what property is the husband’s, what is the wife’s, and what is marital. Second, the trial court must decide the value of the marital property. Finally, if the judge determines that simply dividing the marital assets “according to title” would yield an unfair result, then the judge adds a monetary award to the spouse who received the lesser group of titled marital assets.

In S.L. and T.L.’s divorce case, the trial court in Prince George’s County went through all those required processes. The court determined that, of the couple’s $1.24 million in assets, $553,000 was titled in the husband’s name, $86,000 was in the wife’s name, and $602,000 was titled in the spouses’ names jointly. After subtracting the couple’s marital debt, the judge ultimately awarded the wife a monetary award of $50,000.

What Some Celebrity Prenuptial Agreement Disputes Can Teach You About Your Maryland Prenup

February 28, 2022 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

Here in Maryland, a prenuptial agreement can be a very beneficial thing for both you and your future spouse. Some people consider a prenuptial agreement to be the cynical ploy of someone who’s already planning a divorce before the wedding has even occurred, but that is rarely the reality. A well-written and fairly negotiated prenuptial agreement can give you confidence that you and your spouse will be in control, rather than a court, if the marriage eventually ends. Making sure that both you and your spouse are working with knowledgeable Maryland prenuptial agreement lawyers can go a long way in ensuring you get something that is fair, mutually agreeable, and largely safe from a subsequent legal attack.

Prenuptial agreements have been in the news a lot lately. In December, music mogul Dr. Dre finalized his divorce. During that litigation, the hip-hop icon sought to enforce a prenuptial agreement. The wife strongly opposed, arguing that she signed the agreement under duress.

Four months earlier, another celebrity prenuptial agreement dispute came to a close. Singer and talk-show host Kelly Clarkson successfully argued for the enforcement of the prenuptial agreement that she and her husband signed. News reports generally did not indicate why the husband thought the prenup was invalid.

The Benefits of Good Financial Recordkeeping When Your Maryland Divorce Involves Dissipation of Assets or Claims of Dissipation

February 14, 2022 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

Proper recordkeeping is a must when it comes to preparing tax returns, but it’s not the only place where good recordkeeping can be incredibly valuable. Divorce is another legal area where the difference between success and failure could be your good records, or a lack thereof. Good records may be the critical evidence you need to substantiate your position. On the flip side, if your spouse is making a financial argument that isn’t supported by appropriate documentation, you may, with the help of a knowledgeable Maryland divorce lawyer, be able to use that lack of paperwork to defeat their argument.

You can see that in action in a recent divorce case from Montgomery County.

The husband married his wife in Bangladesh in 2011 and brought her to the United States, where he’d lived since 1998. In 2019, the couple split up and, a year later, the wife filed for divorce. At the time that the wife filed for divorce, the husband had nearly $219,000 in a Bank of America account. Four weeks later, that account balance was just under $11,000.

Waiting Too Long to Respond Proved to Be Critically Harmful to One Maryland Husband’s Divorce Case

January 31, 2022 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

You’ve probably heard the phrase “timing is everything.” In your divorce, timing isn’t everything, but definitely can be a crucial thing. If you wait too long to take action, that inaction could have massive negative implications for you. Don’t let it happen to you. Instead, once you’re served notice of your spouse’s divorce filing, reach out and retain a skilled Maryland divorce lawyer, who can help you make sure you’re taking the right actions at the right times.

A recent Washington County contested divorce is an example of what can happen when you wait too long to act. The wife filed and properly served notice of the divorce to the husband, but the husband never submitted a responsive filing with the court.

The court sent the husband a “notice of default” and scheduled a hearing. The husband still did nothing and so the court issued a divorce judgment in the husband’s absence.

How a Non-Marital Asset May Become (At Least Partially) Marital in Nature and Subject to Equitable Distribution in Maryland

December 30, 2021 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

Marriages, especially those entered into by spouses with pre-established careers, can lead to complex divorces when they break down. These kinds of divorces arise when a spouse entered the marriage with substantial non-marital assets, but then also continued to grow their wealth during the course of the marriage. When a marriage like that ends in divorce, it is critical, in order to get everything you deserve, to obtain a judgment that accurately identifies what’s a marital asset and what’s non-marital. A skilled Maryland divorce lawyer can be essential to getting this done right.

The marriage of a businessman and a social worker from Montgomery County was an example of this kind of union. The marriage lasted just two years before irretrievably breaking down.

Much of the divorce litigation centered on the husband’s 401(k) plan. Before the pair wed, the husband worked for a very large bank and had a 401(k) through his employer. Shortly after he and the wife married, the husband rolled that 401(k) over into another account.