Separation Agreement – Is Self-Help Form Enough?

In the high-tech digital age in which we live, you can find so much information online, including fill-in-the-blank self-help documents that purport to help you handle your entire divorce without needing to hire an attorney.  Be careful!!!!  Just because you don’t understand what you signed doesn’t mean the contract is not valid!  A Separation Agreement is a binding legal contract that can greatly impact your rights and duties and often include issues of child custody, child support and more.  Don’t wait until it’s too late to involve an attorney!  Fixing mistakes will likely cost you more time, money and frustration than if you worked with the right attorney from the start.

Here are some important topics to discuss with your attorney when preparing a Separation Agreement:

• Whether alimony or any other form of spousal support will be paid and for how long you will pay or receive alimony or any other form of spousal support
• Who gets to keep the house, the cars, and the other items of personal property
• How debts will be divided
• How to handle tax consequences of support payments
• Which parent will get to claim the children on his or her tax returns
• How will custody of the children be handled
• How will major decisions regarding the children’s care be made – medical decisions? school decisions?
• Whether child support will be paid and who will be responsible for paying for things like child care, health insurance, and uninsured medical expenses for the children
• Whether there will be an agreement or court order and what are the consequences of those decisions
• How debts will be divided between the parties.

Contact us to schedule an appointment to sit down with one of our family law attorneys, who can assess if a Separation Agreement is right for you, based on your particular circumstances.