Dealing With Underemployed Spouses in Divorce Negotiations

Some spouses will deliberately try to stack the deck during a divorce proceeding, ignoring the fact that neither attorneys nor judges are fooled by such tactics. This can include hiding or wastefully spending assets, or deliberately remaining unemployed or underemployed to throw off support calculations. EzSupport-NY, Easysoft Legal Software’s NY family law software, allows attorneys to prepare child support both on the ex’s current income (or lack thereof) and on a more reasonable income that might be imputed by the court.

Dealing With Real Income

If a spouse is working a menial job well below the spouse’s qualifications, or if the spouse seems to be deliberately remaining unemployed, then attorneys can go ahead and prepare a NY Statement of Net Worth with this unrealistically low income. Of course that isn’t fair to the client who will end up receiving far less support than is deserved. A new request for support can be

Family law courts use figures from the state labor department to determine what a given spouse should be earning. Attorneys can make the same estimation and prepare support deals based on a more reasonable income. That is no guarantee the offers will be taken, but it is still worth doing the work. Unfortunately filling out multiple Statements of Net Worth by hand is time consuming and prone to error.

Create Scenarios With EzSupport-NY

When preparing multiple Statements of Net Worth, most of the information will remain the same. If you are only varying the spouse’s income, then why bother reworking the form from scratch every time? EzSupport-NY allows you to create as many support scenarios as you like. You can easily see how much support would be calculated for the spouse’s current income, a more realistic income, or anything in between.

Nobody wants to go to court. It takes time and you never know how a judge will rule. A well presented, well documented support offer can avoid court and yet still get a fair deal for your client. Prepare a range of offers to give you flexibility in negotiations. If you do end up in court, you can back your support offers with hard data and that is going to impress a judge. The more clearly you present your case, the more likely the court will rule in your client’s favor.

Buy EzSupport-NY NY divorce software — either the cloud version or the desktop version — and try it risk-free for 30 days.

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