Fort Myers Florida Family Law Legal Blog

Premarital agreements, or prenuptial agreements, as they are commonly called, are excellent tools for both preserving your marriage and making your Florida divorce exponentially easier. However, for the courts to consider your prenuptial agreement valid and enforceable, it must meet certain guidelines. Moreover, the circumstances surrounding and leading up to its creation must be lawful and contain no fraudulent actions. If one party can prove the existence of fraud, duress, coercion or other wrongful doings, the courts may deem your agreement unenforceable.

Per title VI of the Florida Statutes, section 61.079, your premarital agreement is considered unenforceable if the person against whom enforcement is pursued can prove that he or she did not voluntarily execute the agreement, was not provided a just and judicious disclosure of the other party's assets and liabilities or did not have, or could not have reasonably have had, a sufficient knowledge of the assets or liabilities of the other party. Moreover, your agreement may be unenforceable if you or the other party can prove that your agreement was the product of coercion, fraud, duress or overreaching, or if, when executed, your agreement was in anyway unconscionable.

An abusive relationship is devastating to not only the person in the relationship but those who care about that person. If you have a friend in Florida who is in such a relationship, then you may wonder how you can help. You probably want to tear the person away from his or her abusive partner, but your best course of action is to simply be a good friend.

According to The National Domestic Violence Hotline, it is very important that you are supportive of the person even if he or she does not choose to leave the relationship. You should avoid judging your friend and never get yourself involved in the violence. You can encourage him or her to get help and help him or her develop a plan to get away.

Divorce is a stressful time for anyone who has experienced it. But for those couples that also conduct business together, divorce can really get messy, especially when they are in the midst of starting a new business venture. 

Tax law changes in 2019 mean now is the time to file for divorce in Florida if you expect to pay alimony. According to The New York Times, the tax law eliminates the tax break given to those paying alimony. Currently, if you pay alimony and meet certain guidelines, you may take a deduction for the alimony before figuring the taxes you owe. The new law takes that option away, meaning you may pay more taxes.

Typically, the tax break benefits you the most if you pay a large amount of alimony. Consider if you make $500,000 a year and you pay $150,000 a year in alimony. Currently, you may deduct the $150,000 from your income, making it only $350,000 that you pay taxes on. The new law makes you pay taxes on the full $500,000. It is clear to see how this is not favorable.