by Andy Chen | Jul 4, 2021 | California, Family Law
For your annoyance, er, amusement today, I present another blog post on California child support. Today, I’m specifically going to talk about when it’s possible under California law for the parents of a minor child to agree to an amount that’s different than what the family court computes. To begin, it’s helpful to understand what California child support consists of. I have a video on my Youtube channel where I go over the various components that go into the overall child support figure that a parent either pays or receives. Most laypeople just know the overall figure and don’t actually know what goes into computing it. This amount, of course, is computed in the comfort and peace of a courtroom. What kind of child support actually works in the real world, though, can easily be very different. If this is your situation, do you and the other parent have the ability to adjust your child support? Or do you have to live with some impractical figure that was computed by someone who may not actually know your life? The answer is yes, you and the other parent do have the ability to inject some realism into the child support amount that applies in your case. The governing law for that in California is Section 4065 of the Family Code. Section 4065 says that the parties to a case can agree to go below the guideline amount computed with the formula in Section 4055 if the two of them declare the following to be true: They are fully informed of their rights concerning child support The order is being agreed...
by Andy Chen | Jul 2, 2021 | California, Family Law
If you’re involved in a child custody or visitation case, there’s a good chance you’ve encountered the term “best interests of the child.” As a general rule, when there are minor children involved in a California family law case, courts will try their best to come up with a custody and visitation arrangement that is in the best interests of the child. The phrase “best interests” is tossed around a great deal, though, without much definition or specificity. In this post, I’m going to try and change that by, as should be no surprise, going over a California statute. I’ll toss in a little common sense at the end also. The Statute When it comes to statutes, there’s two-levels of analysis. First, the statute — Section 3011 of California’s Family Code, if you want to look it up — does contain a list of factors that courts can consider when trying to determine what is and is not in a child’s best interest. The second-level, though, is that this list is not exhaustive. In other words, the court can also consider factors other than what the statute explicitly lists. The list in Section 3011 says: The “health, safety, and welfare of the child”; Whatever history of abuse exists, if any, that is perpetrated by the party seeking custody now; ( The “nature and amount of contact with both parents”; (If this is your situation, you need to read the text of Section 3011 as well as that of Section 3046 because a lot of exceptions apply). The “habitual or continual illegal use of controlled substances,” abuse of alcohol, or...
by Andy Chen | Jun 26, 2021 | California, Family Law
In a prior post (from 2019, apparently. Didn’t realize it was that long ago), I went over the Automatic Temporary Restraining Order (i.e. the “ATROS”) that applies in California divorce cases. The governing law there was basically Section 2040 of California’s Family Code. I also have a similar post on New York’s ATROS which I also put out in 2019. In this post, I’m going to over a more minor aspect of California’s ATROS, but a very important one nonetheless: When is a California ATROS effective? The answer to that question is, conveniently, also in California’s Family Code. It would make sense if it was in a section close to Section 2040 since you would assume code sections that go over similar topics would be grouped together. You would assume that… but you’d be wrong. The governing law that answers the effectiveness question is actually Section 233 of the California Family Code. Because of course it’s in Section 233. Why would it not be? Anyway, the answer is specifically in Section 233(a), which states: “Upon filing the petition and issuance of the summons and upon personal service of the petition and summons on the respondent or upon waiver and acceptance of service by the respondent, the temporary restraining order under this part shall be in effect against the parties until the final judgment is entered or the petition is dismissed, or until further order of the court.” As usual, I’ve bolded and underlined the important part of the statute, which in this case is basically the first half. The ATROS is effective on the petitioner — in other words,...
by Andy Chen | Jun 6, 2021 | California, Family Law
On my Youtube channel, I have some videos in which I go over how prenuptial agreements in California work. In one of those videos, I go over how an unrepresented party to a prenuptial agreement has to have at least 7 calendar days to review the agreement prior to signing the agreement. In addition to the 7 days, the unrepresented person also has to be told to go get legal counsel. Failure to provide this admonition or provide the unrepresented spouse the 7 days means that the prenuptial agreement can be invalidated on that basis alone. The goal, of course, is to not force or coerce any person in to a prenuptial agreement that they would other wise not agree to freely. If you need California legal authority for that, it’s section 1615 of the California Family Code. In the real world, this 7-day waiting period often poses a problem if you have a wedding date set and you’re rushing to get a prenuptial agreement done before that and at least one of the parties to the prenuptial agreement is not represented by an attorney. The purpose of this blog post is to describe at least one major update to Section 1615 of the California Family Code that took place for calendar year 2020. The update is found in section 1615(c)(2) (B) of the California Family Code which states: “For an agreement executed on or after January 1, 2020, the party against whom enforcement is sought had not less than seven calendar days between the time that party was first presented with the final agreement and the time the...
by Andy Chen | Mar 29, 2021 | California, Family Law, New York
I live and practice law in California. When it comes to divorces, California is one of nine US states that follow the Community Property system when it comes to dividing property. In theory, community property is a simple idea — namely, the general rules are that (1) whatever the individual spouses acquire on their own prior to the marriage is their own property and is not split up during a divorce, and (2) whatever the individual spouses acquire during the marriage is generally “community property” and, thus, needs to be divided 50/50 in the event of a divorce. To be clear, though, (1) and (2) are just the general rules under the California community property system. There are exceptions under which, for example, an item acquired during the marriage is still the separate property of the spouse acquiring it due to the manner in which the item was acquired. In practice, though, applying the community property system can be quite involved. Over on my Youtube channel, I put out a video a few months back going over some common problems that occur when you try to apply the idea of community property in the real world. Here is the video. If you haven’t seen my Youtube channel, I encourage you to take a look at it as I go over community property as well as various other ideas related to California law also. What I am going to do in this post, though, is try to compare Community Property to the other system — Equitable Distribution — that is in place in the other 41 US states. By the...
by Andy Chen | Jun 9, 2020 | California, Family Law
Most people are probably familiar with child custody in the context of a divorce. For example, one parent has the child (or children) these days and these times while the other parent has them these other days and other times. In California, child custody can also be described via another option, namely the Caregiver’s Authorization under section 6550 of the California Family Code. What a Caregiver’s Authorization allows another adult — called the “Caregiver” — to assume certain authority over a minor child without court involvement. This authority, however, is limited to that related to the child’s schooling and medical care. All that’s required is that the Caregiver sign a declaration stating, among other things, that the minor child is now living with them for whatever reason. The amount of authority the Caregiver gets is dependent on factors such as their relationship to the minor child and the contents of the declaration signed. A sample declaration is provided in section 6552 of the California Family Code. For instance, if you’re the Caregiver and you only fill in sections 1 through 4 on the sample declaration provided in section 6552, section 6550(a) only allows you to “enroll a minor in school and consent to school-related medical care on behalf of the minor.” If you’re interested — as I was when I saw the term — “school-related medical care” is defined in section 6550(h)(3) to be “medical care that is required by state or local governmental authority as a condition for school enrollment, including immunizations, physical examinations, and medical examinations conducted in schools for pupils.” On the other hand, if you’re...
