What You Ought to Know About Alimony for Military Spouses
Often, military couples find that the rules governing alimony for military spouses are rather complex and bewildering. Nonetheless, acquiring a basic comprehension of how this procedure works, whilst trying to identify the particular issues that might be applicable to your circumstances, can significantly reduce the expense, time and emotional turmoil of a divorce. Primarily, you will follow a similar divorce procedure to a civilian couple.
Notwithstanding, there are certain legal issues that might apply, due to the military service. These issues might include determining post-divorce benefits, calculating spousal and child support, and making child custody arrangements. Certainly, military divorces are increasing:
Special Rules for the Military
Largely, divorce is governed by local procedures and state law. However, based on your location, there are particular military regulations and federal statutes that might apply to your divorce. For example, the Former Spouses’ Uniformed Services Protection Act can affect the way surplus military retired wages are divided between service members and former spouses. Also, it can determine eligibility for installation exchange, commissary and medical benefits.
General Principles
Typically, divorces are regarded by the military as private civil matters, to be settled by civilian courts. Usually, commanders do not involve themselves in domestic circumstances, except in certain cases. For example, they might be involved if a dependent claims that he/she is deprived of sufficient financial support, by a service member spouse. Nonetheless, even in these cases, commanders have limited authority, in the absence of a civilian court ruling.
Availability of Legal Services
A service member and his/her spouse can access military legal services free of charge, via the offices for installation legal assistance. In family law or divorce matters, service members and dependent spouses will require separate legal assistance lawyers. This ensures that each party receives confidential, impartial and candid advice, and that there are no conflicts of interest with respect to the representation of each party.
How Legal Assistance Works
Communications between legal assistance lawyers and clients are private and confidential. Typically, this is governed by the attorney/client privilege. Although military legal assistance lawyers might not be allowed to draft certain legal documents, or represent family members in court, they can offer helpful guidance on many different legal issues. This includes child custody and divorce, the Civil Relief Service members Act, wills and income taxes.
Also, legal assistance attorneys offer complimentary notary services. For legal separation situations or military divorces that need civil court representation, or involve contentious issues like division of assets (such as retirement pay), child/spousal support or child custody, it is best to contact a family lawyer. These professionals will be conversant with the rules governing alimony for military spouses in your area, and will have years of experience in military family law.
Looking for the right family lawyer or divorce lawyer can be hard. However, with our magnitude of awards and experience, Fine & Associates are bound to have the right one for you.