Lots of people about to embark on the path toward divorce are shocked to learn that their spouse may have some claim to part or all of certain assets that they initially acquired prior to their marriage – or inherited during their marriage.

These folks are even more shocked when they learn that, for the most part, it didn’t have to be that way …

If they had only spoken to an attorney a lot sooner, and titled and / or managed their assets a little more wisely.

A prenuptial agreement or postnuptial agreement is probably the least expensive and optimal vehicle to head off a divorce-triggered disaster before it happens.

But there are other methods as well, some fairly simple and inexpensive, and some, such as various types of trusts, more complex and, therefore, potentially more costly.

The applicable law governing these divorce and/or estate planning issues may vary considerably from state to state. For example, some states apply the law of equitable distribution upon divorce and others apply community property law. There may be many other differences as well.

Florida is an equitable distribution state and not a community property state, so that must be kept in mind in reading the following referenced article.

Nonetheless, any analysis that gets anyone started thinking about these issues is a step in the right direction. But it’s only the first step …

Read more in this Lake County [Lakeport, CA] News article: Estate planning: Separate property trusts for married persons.

American missionaries travel to Haiti to rescue thirty-three earthquake orphans by taking them, temporarily, to an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, and then back to families in the US prepared to take the children in.

According to their lawyer, the missionaries are said to be in possession of paperwork backing up their authorization to remove the children from Haiti. But it is unclear whether the authorization is proper, or whether the children had passports.

It turns out that twenty of the children may not actually be orphans and may have one or more living parents. And their parents allegedly claim that the missionaries were only supposed to educate the children in the Dominican Republic, not take them to the US.

Now the missionaries are detained, under arrest in Haiti, for kidnapping the children into the Dominican Republic and for criminal conspiracy.

Rumor suggests that the missionaries’ leader may have misled others in their group about their humanitarian mission and/or legal procedure. The leader is under investigation in the US in connection with other possible crimes. But she reportedly maintains that the children’s parents wanted to give their children a better life.

It does not appear that most of the missionaries were aware that it would be illegal to remove the childen from Haiti without proper legal authorization.

The Haitian court has three months to rule on this case. Kidnapping is punishable in Haiti by up to fifteen years’ imprisonment.

Read more in

• this China Central Television article: Missionaries charged with child abduction
• this Salem [OR] News article: Five of Ten Americans on Child Abduction Charges Taken to Port-au-Prince Court
• this UK Times article: US Baptists charged with Haiti child abduction face 15 years in jail
• this New York Times article: Haiti Charges Americans With Child Abduction

Eighty-two year old Husband owns used auto parts business.

Husband has stroke.

Wife gets legal guardianship of Husband.

Husband is admitted to nursing home.

Eighty year old Wife discharges Husband from nursing home.

Wife rejects in-home nursing care.

Husband and Wife live in back room of Husband’s business establishment…

In conditions unfit for human habitation.

Police find Husband, unattended, at his business establishment, malnourished, with numerous bedsores, afflicted by dementia, and wearing soiled clothing.

Wife is arrested for abusing Husband.

Wife represents herself at trial.

Wife maintains, in essence, that Husband is fine and should be allowed to return home.

Wife is convicted of abusing Husband.

Wife is ordered to relinquish legal guardianship of Husband to Wife’s and Husband’s daughter or the state.

Wife is denied unsupervised visits with Husband.

Wife is sentenced to eight years’ confinement in prison, suspended, with probation.

If Wife disobeys any of the court’s orders, Wife’s suspended sentence could be reinstated.

Husband is committed to a nursing home.

Wife reportedly states that Husband is unhappy in the nursing home and will be retaining his own counsel to procure his discharge.

Husband and Wife have at least $1 million in assets.

Read more in this Delaware News Journal article: Delaware crime: Husband abuse gets wife eight years’ probation.

In Japan, the wives control the pursestrings. Historically, Japanese wives skim some of the family’s earnings and roll it over into their own personal rainy day fund, called “bellybutton money”.

The weak economy in Japan over the last year and a half or so has taken its toll on many wives’ so-called bellybutton money.

Some wives have had to dip into their private stash to cover household expenses. Others have economized on spending for the family to maintain their rate of skimming.

Interestingly, according to a survey, the main reason that Japanese wives accumulate their bellybutton money is so they can afford to get a divorce around the age of fifty. It is reported that many Japanese wives are able to amass UK 1 million pounds.

In a similar vein, a recently passed Japanese law now entitles Japanese wives to half of their husbands’ pensions. As a result of the new law, many sixtysomething Japanese wives have consulted lawyers about divorce.

Read more in this UK Times article: Japan’s wives forced to indulge in navel gazing.

Ontario Canada’s highest court has fired a shot which may be heard around the family law universe.

Common law Husband threatens and harasses common law Wife … with the intention of intimidating her into backing off on her claims for property division and alimony.

For example, Husband threatens to send intimate pictures of Wife to her grandmother.

And Husband paints their common law marriage as merely the business relationship of landlord and tenant.

And Husband sends Wife scary letters, including one referring to a bullet in her head.

Husband also engages in frivolous, but nonetheless expensive, litigation intended to wear Wife down financially.

Sound familiar? If you’ve spent any time in American family courts, it should.

Based on Husband’s pattern of conduct, the Canadian appellate court refused to be used by Husband.

The Court declined to hear Husband’s appeal, concluding that it is an “abuse of process”.

Allowing to stand a $250,000 judgment awarding Wife damages for Husband’s intentional infliction of mental and emotional suffering and reimbursement of her legal fees and costs.

This was the first Canadian case in which the Court compensated a spouse for purely psychological abuse suffered in the absence of physical abuse.

Husband is also being prosecuted for his alleged threats and extortion.

Read more in this Ottawa Citizen article: Court refuses to be pawn in divorce case.

Maltese Mother and Scottish Father are divorced.

Mother has custody of their Daughter and they live in Malta.

Father lives in Scotland.

Last November, Mother and Daughter go to Scotland to visit relatives.

While they are there, Father requests a visitation day in Scotland. Mother agrees.

But Father refuses to return Daughter and accuses Mother of keeping Daughter in a dangerous and unsanitary environment.

Because of Father’s allegations, Scottish authorities detain Daughter in Scotland pending a hearing.

Daughter remains in Scotland for almost two months, attending a Scottish school, before any hearing.

In early January, the Scottish court finds that Husband has no rightful claim to custody of Daughter and rules that Daughter should be returned to Malta under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Read more in this Times of Malta article: Girl returned to mother after ‘nightmare’.

Everyone knows some parent (or grandparent) of an adult child who just doesn’t like their child’s chosen spouse.

The reasons vary – and sometimes there really is no actual reason.

In most instances, the parent (or grandparent) has no choice but to “get over it”.

But that doesn’t necessarily stop them from trying to interfere or control – even from the grave.

And so it is with a wealthy Israeli Grandmother dissatisfied with her Grandson’s choice of Wife.

Both Mother and Grandmother have had no relationship with Grandson since his marriage ten years ago.

In her will, the Grandmother leaves her fortune to Grandson and her other grandson, but Grandson can’t collect his inheritance … until he divorces Wife (or Wife dies).

(There are a couple of stated exceptions, but they apparently don’t apply here.)

Now Grandson intends to challenge the will.

Similar provisions in wills have been struck down in some US states on the grounds that it is against public policy to instigate divorce.

Read more in this Monsters and Critics / WOTR Limited article: Till death – or money – do us part: Israeli man’s marriage dilemma.

UK Husband owns roughly 300 acre farm.

Husband and Wife have stormy marriage.

Wife tells friends that Husband is violent with her.

Husband also reportedly threatens Wife

Wife e-mails one friend that Husband claims to have associates “who could get rid of bodies”.

Husband reportedly has affair.

Wife discusses divorce (in 2007).

Husband offers Wife a settlement of UK 600,000 pounds.

Wife, however, rejects that offer, holding out for UK 800,000 pounds.

Shortly after, Wife goes missing, never to be seen or heard from again, dead or alive.

Husband allegedly does not report Wife as missing for five whole days.

Husband is charged with murder.

Husband’s guilt or innocence is now up to the jury.

Read more in

• this Gloucestershire [UK] Media article: UPDATE: Jury out in Prout murder trial
• and this UK Sun article: Farmer ‘killed wife over £800k
• this UK Mirror article: Man ‘killed his ex over £800,000 divorce’

Attorney-Husband has a lucrative class-action personal injury litigation practice.

Husband and Wife have millions of dollars in assets.

Husband has been working on a particular case for the last several years of Husband’s marriage to Wife.

Wife files for divorce from Attorney-Husband.

After Wife files for divorce, but before final judgment, Husband receives a multi-million dollar attorney’s fee in the above class action lawsuit.

The multi-million dollar question: does Husband get to keep his entire fee? Or does Wife get a share of it?

The Tennessee trial court rules that the attorney’s fee is marital property of both Husband and Wife … and awards forty (40%) percent of the fee to Wife.

On appeal, the Supreme Court of Tennessee affirms the trial court’s classification of the attorney’s fee as marital property and upholds the trial court’s division of the fee.

(Note: different states define marital property differently, and Florida’s statutory definition differs from Tennessee’s.)

Read more in this Business Insider Law Review article: Tennesee Class-Action Lawyer Must Pay $6.8 Million Of Post-Divorce Payday and this ABA Journal Law News Now article: Tenn. High Court’s Divorce Ruling Costs Class Action Lawyer $6.8M.

Husband is celebrated surgeon and professor in Germany.

Then he reportedly pleads guilty to intentionally harming patients and then falsifying medical records.

He is fined approximately $37,000, but is not sentenced to jail.

He does however lose his position and standing.

Husband reportedly receives approximately $3 million in severance pay.

Husband and Wife leave Germany to immigrate to Canada.

Several years later, their marriage breaks down, and they divorce in 2008.

Canadian divorce court orders Husband to pay Wife child support and alimony, and to turn over some assets to Wife.

Husband pleads guilty to two charges of driving while impaired.

Husband is ordered to pay a nominal fine for each charge and his driving privileges are revoked for two years.

But Husband is not sentenced to jail.

Husband seeks to modify the final judgment in his divorce, arguing that his fortunes have reversed … and that Wife has not taken steps to become self-supporting.

Wife responds by noting that Husband has not produced adequate proof of his supposed worsened financial condition, inadequate documentation of his financial picture at all.

Husband reportedly owns real estate … in Germany and Canada … and the US and Switzerland. He reportedly also owns a stake in a Canadian air carrier.

The court has not yet ruled in Husband’s case, but …

Read more in this Kamloops [Canada] Daily News article: Disgraced German doctor wants to pay ex less.