Grand Rapids Family Law Blog

College is expensive. The costs are increasing, and parents are often planning for their children's college educations from the time they are born. Some choose a standard savings account and other means of traditional savings or investing. Others might choose a 529 plan, which is designed specifically for education savings. This account allows a parent to control investments, while reserving the funds specifically for the benefit of a child's educational expenses.

However, what should happen to these college savings during a divorce? While not formally child support, these are funds that are intended to help the children. The funds are still owned by the parents, but they should be reserved for the child, even after a divorce. With accounts intended for a child's college education it might be wise to discuss these issues with an experienced attorney.

We live in a highly digital world. People are constantly updating their locations to social media, posting pictures online for the world to see, and stating their opinions, sometimes as if no one else is reading them. For people going through a divorce, these digital lives can raise questions from a former spouse, especially concerning a person's child custody case.

Although there might be temptation for a parent to say something bad on social media about their ex, they might want to refrain. Sometimes people might want to post pictures of their friends after rekindling friendships that may have been neglected when they were in a relationship. All of these things might seem like new found freedom, but it is important that people going through the divorce and child custody process use caution with their social media accounts and other forms of digital communication.

Cash settlements in divorce can be quite common. While not all of these cash payments from one former spouse to another are extremely large, they are usually significant. They might be tens of thousands of dollars or even hundreds of thousands. No matter how large a settlement is, it is important that a person has a plan for what they will do with any money they receive.

Sometimes a person will receive a settlement and think that the best thing for them to do is to pay off their mortgage, buy a new car or fund their children's college educations. While these things can be important to take care of, they might not be a top priority. Depending on how close a person is to their retirement, they might want to heavily invest their settlement. These are all things that a person's support team can help them with during and after a divorce.

Divorce can be very stressful. There is no denying that it is an emotional time for the people who are involved. The stress may be compounded by rumors from other people about why two people are getting divorced, and there might be offers of advice from people who aren't very helpful.

The most important advice for a person going through a divorce might not come from someone else. It might be that a person going through this life change needs to listen to themselves. It might be wise for a person to try to ignore comments by other people and not take advice from people who haven't been through a similar situation. An experienced attorney, as part of a divorce support network, can help a person understand the legal situation they are going through and help remove some of the stress associated with legal work.