Hoboken Family Law Blog

I Own a Home Here in New Jersey, But Also Have Properties Out of State. What Kind of Estate Planning Do I Need?

August 22, 2020 | Frank Marciano

When it comes to wills and living trusts, you may hear a lot of discussion about avoiding probate. The degree of importance of avoiding probate will vary from person to person and will depend on exactly what assets you possess. There are certain groups of people for whom avoiding probate is especially important. If you’re someone who owns property in multiple states, you very possibly are one of those people. That means that the right type of estate planning can potentially save your loved ones a great deal of time and money, so you should make sure to contact an experienced Hoboken estate planning attorney about your situation.

A while ago, the advice column NJMoneyHelp.com relayed the story of a child whose father had died without a will. When you die with no will in New Jersey, that’s called “dying intestate” and it means your assets are distributed under the terms of New Jersey’s intestate distribution law.

When that distribution was finished, the child had received the father’s timeshare. The NJMoneyHelp.com piece did not state where the timeshare was located but, given that only about 1% of all timeshares are located here in the Garden State, it is certainly possible that it was somewhere outside New Jersey, like Florida or South Carolina.

Some of the Ways in Which a New Jersey Divorce Action or a Prenuptial Agreement Can Help Protect You Financially

August 22, 2020 | Frank Marciano

Divorce is something that, in many cases, has sweeping reach that touches many areas of your personal life. It is also something that can have serious effects on your “legal life,” as well. If you have created an estate plan (though a will, a trust and/or other legal documents,) your separation or divorce can have a major impact on how those legal documents work. Those impacts may potentially provide you with even more reasons to make sure you are completing your divorce without delay. To get that divorce finished efficiently and effectively, and to be sure that all your legal documents do what you want them to, be sure you’re working with an experienced Hoboken divorce attorney on your case.

In terms of the effect separating and/or divorcing can have, there’s a real-life case from recent months that is a good example. Last September, famous musician Ric Ocasek died in Manhattan at age 75. For more than 25 years, Ocasek had been married to model Paulina Porizkova. However, in 2018, Porizkova posted on social media that she and Ocasek had separated in 2017, according to People.com. Two months after Ocasek’s death, news reports indicated that Ocasek had excluded Porizkova from his will. The will stated that the pair were “in the process of divorcing” and that Porizkova was not entitled to anything from his estate “because she has abandoned me.”

Ocasek died in New York City, so his e

Paper cutout family with divorce related messageste likely will not be administered in New Jersey. However, you might wonder, what would happen in a situation like this in New Jersey? The reality is… it depends.

A Skilled New Jersey Estate Planning Attorney Can Help You Both Before and After Your Legal Documents Are Signed

August 22, 2020 | Frank Marciano

According to the National Center for State Courts, the frequency of people proceeding in legal matters without an attorney is increasing. Handling a legal matter without an attorney — any legal matter — is filled with potential risks and pitfalls. Some people may think that, because creating a will or a trust often involves many straight-forward factual matters and relatively few murky, complex concepts of the law, that representation by a skilled attorney isn’t really needed. That kind of thinking is often a serious mistake. Going forward without an experienced Hoboken estate planning attorney may seem frugal but, when problems arise later, you’ll be glad you had representation provided by a knowledgeable legal professional.

Take, as an example, the estate of V.O. V.O. was a Middlesex County woman who died in March 2019 at age 83. Three years earlier, V.O. made the wise decision to retain an attorney and execute a will. The will said that, after the payment of certain specific gifts, her two sons, D.Y. and M.Y., should receive the rest of her assets on a 50-50 basis. One of those specific gifts went a third son, J.Y., to whom the mother left exactly $1,000.

D.Y., whom the mother named as the executor of her will, submitted the will to be probated. J.Y. filed something called a “caveat,” which is the legal document you must file to contest a will. J.Y.’s argument was that his mother was under the “undue influence” of D.Y. when she signed the 2016 will.

The Right Tool for the Job: Choosing the Correct Trust or Trusts to Meet Your Goals for Estate Planning in New Jersey

August 22, 2020 | Frank Marciano

There are lots of benefits you can receive from a well-crafted estate plan. Your will, trust or trusts can give you the peace of mind of knowing that your wishes and preferences are in “black and white” in valid legal document. Such legal documents can help you to provide for friends or relatives who are outside your immediate family… or perhaps benefit a cherished charity. You can also, in some situations, help to avoid certain taxes. To do that, though, you should make sure you’re working with the right legal team. Your skilled Hoboken estate planning attorney can help you get this kind of plan set up cor

rectly, and setting it up right is critical because, if your plan is set up incorrectly, it can have devastating tax consequences.

That was the case for the estate of M.V.R. New Jersey is one of just a few states that have an inheritance tax. As with many forms of what’s often called “death taxes,” there are ways of potentially reducing your tax liability exposure through estate planning techniques. One common method to address the inheritance tax in New Jersey is for married couples to establish two trusts during their lifetime. When the first spouse dies, his/her trust takes ownership of his/her half of the marital home, and the trust pays a tax based on the home’s value at that time. The same thing happens upon the second spouse’s death, with the second spouse’s trust taking ownership of that half of the home and paying the associated taxes.

M.V.R. and her husband, W.V.R., had an estate plan that did something a bit different. Their plan established a single irrevocable trust and the couple transferred ownership of their home into that trust during their lifetime.

Hoboken Bar and Restaurant Owners Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid.

April 29, 2020 | Frank Marciano

Hoboken Restaurant owners beware!!!!! Your entire lifestyle, your family, your home, your children's education are at…

Posted by Frank Marciano on Wednesday, April 29, 2020

When Postponing Your New Jersey Divorce “For the Sake of the Kids” May Harm, Not Help, Your Children

April 6, 2020 | Frank Marciano

As a parent, you always want what’s best for your children. That’s true whether yours is the happiest of marriages, is a marriage that is faltering or a marriage that has already broken down and ended. Parents in that middle group often find themselves struggling with a most profound conflict: do we get divorced now or do we stay together for the sake of the kids? While many parents may feel an impulse that staying together is best for the kids, there is some evidence to suggest that, in many circumstances, the opposite can be true. If you are a parent and you think that your marriage may headed for divorce, it is worth your while to at least consult with an experienced Hoboken divorce attorney.

In an early February installment of fatherly.com’s advice column, “Ask the Good Father,” a writer stated that he and his wife were in that position. Both spouses wanted a divorce. “We’re going to get a divorce. It’s been a long time coming and we are both okay with it,” the father wrote. Despite these facts, the couple planned to remain married for another half-decade or so. Why? They shared a four-year-old son. Remaining an “intact” family until the boy reached the age of “9 or so” was what both parents believed was best for the child, and so they indefinitely postponed going their separate ways.

While that impulse is quite understandable, some research suggests that this couple’s plan of staying together for another 5 years may hurt, not help, the child. Back in early 2019, The Guardian published the results of a research study that looked at 6,245 children in the United Kingdom. That British study indicated that parental breakups were the hardest on children ages 7 to 14. The children in that age group were the most likely to suffer mental health harm, including anxiety and depression. So, if this father’s son had the same mental makeup as those children studied in the UK, then the parents’ delaying their divorce until the boy was around 9 or so would actually do more harm, not less, to the child’s overall well-being.

I Am Planning to Move from Hoboken to New York City With My Child. Do I Have to Get Court Approval?

April 6, 2020 | Frank Marciano

If you know much about geography here in New Jersey and the surrounding area, you know that moving “two states away” or even just “one state away” doesn’t mean the same as it does if you live out west. When you share custody of a child or children with an ex-spouse or partner, this is more than just a quirky bit of trivia. The law in New Jersey says that an intrastate move with a child is not the same as an interstate move with a child, so these state boundaries can be very important if you find yourself needing to make a move. When that happens, you want to be sure that your move is not held up by legal snags, so it is vital to have a knowledgeable Hoboken child custody attorney on your side from the start.

If you live in Austin, Texas, you can go 200 miles in any direction and not have left the Lone Star State. Here in Hoboken, you could make an interstate move simply by moving 5 miles to the east of Downtown Hoboken (which would put you in New York City). You could move “two states over” simply by moving 40 miles northeast to Greenwich, Connecticut.

In New Jersey, the law, generally speaking, used to require you to get court approval if you were moving out of state (no matter how short the distance.) A move within the Garden State (no matter how long the distance) generally was considered to be a decision within the sound discretion of the primary residential parent and did not require any court involvement. Of course, that can lead to some peculiar results, like possibly allowing a parent to move 150 miles from Hoboken to Cape May with no court approval while requiring another parent to litigate a move of less than 10 miles from Hoboken to Queens.

Prenuptial Agreements in New Jersey and What It Takes to Get One Invalidated by a Court

April 6, 2020 | Frank Marciano

There are lots of stereotypes surrounding prenuptial agreements… some positive and some negative. The reality, however, is that a good prenuptial agreement can potentially benefit both spouses, while a bad one can potentially harm either one. Given just how substantial the impacts of your prenuptial agreement can be, it is essential that you have an experienced Hoboken prenuptial agreement attorney on your side before you sign your agreement.

A recent ruling from the Appellate Division court puts an even brighter spotlight on the vital importance of proceeding cautiously and knowingly before you sign a prenuptial agreement, as getting one of these agreements thrown out is very hard to do. In the case, R.S. was a twice-divorced man preparing for marriage to his third wife. R.S., apparently feeling he’d been “burned” before in divorce, told his bride-to-be that a prenuptial agreement was an absolute must before he’d marry her. Each spouse got independent legal counsel to review the proposed agreement. The wife’s attorney advised against her signing it but, on the eve of the wedding, she signed anyway.

Two decades later, the couple divorced. The wife asked the court to throw out the prenuptial agreement as unenforceable. The wife’s argument was that, if the judge allowed the agreement to stand, she would be left with a post-divorce standard of living that was far below the standard she enjoyed during the marriage. The judge, however, barred any evidence of the couple’s marital lifestyle in the hearing on the agreement’s enforceability.

The Legal Consequences for a New Jersey Resident of a ‘Joke’ Wedding in Las Vegas

April 6, 2020 | Frank Marciano

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Wedding chapel sign in Las Vegas. In the background a false bell tower.

The concept of a “joke” wedding or drunken tying of the knot is often a source for humor, in both music and television. Country music singer Carrie Underwood covered such an event in song in 2009, and Ross and Rachel did it at the end of the fifth season on Friends. Las Vegas chapels today offer the option of a “pretend” wedding, in which there’s no authentic marriage license and no actual marriage. However, if you go through a real Vegas wedding with a genuine marriage license, then you’re legally married. If, after you return home to New Jersey, you realize your Vegas wedding was a case of “Oh no! What have I done?,” then one of your first steps should be to reach out to an experienced Hoboken divorce attorney to discuss your circumstance. Your Vegas wedding has created a legal marriage with real legal consequences, and you will likely need a legal divorce solution to end that marriage.

As noted above, if the wedding you now regret was a pretend one, you can just dispose of the hardcopy and electronic memories and move on. If it wasn’t pretend, it it’s going to take something more, as one woman who recently wrote to NJMoneyHelp.com learned. That woman had married a platonic friend in Las Vegas as a joke. Several years later, the man met another woman whom he desired to marry in sincerity.

Alimony in New Jersey: How It Works in Long-Term Marriages Versus Short-Term Marriages

January 14, 2020 | Frank Marciano

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Alimony is the end result of many divorce actions.

Alimony is one of those legal areas that may inspire a great deal of fear and concern among some divorcing spouses. A spouse from a long-term marriage may fear facing a lifetime of alimony, even after his ex-spouse has begun living with a new partner. A spouse from a short-term marriage may fear that she’ll be paying for just a few years of wedded bliss with many years of alimony payments. This post seeks to alleviate some of those fears, which may be unfounded in your situation. Of course, to get the exact advice that you need for your precise circumstances, be sure to reach out to a skilled Hoboken alimony attorney.

L.R. and R.R. were a pair of ex-spouses whose marriage was an example of a long-term one. The pair divorced in 2013 after 21 years of marriage. The trial court in their case ordered that the husband pay the wife permanent alimony. The couple’s marital settlement agreement said that, if the wife began living with someone “unrelated by blood or marriage” for six months, that was cohabitation and would entitle the husband to revisit the issue of alimony and potentially get his permanent alimony terminated.

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