Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
2,138
result(s) for
"Divorce settlements"
Sort by:
Who moves out and who keeps the home? Short-term and mediumterm mobility consequences of grey divorce in Belgium
Focusing on married couples separating at ages 50 to 70, we investigate who leaves the joint home upon separation and in the years immediately following separation. Considering ex-couple characteristics, we contrast the bargaining principle, which predicts higher moving-out rates for women, and the fairness principle, which points to the opposite. Using Belgian register and census data, we study marital couples who separated in 2002 at ages 50 to 70 after a marriage of at least 15 years' duration. We follow them for three years and estimate their moving patterns using multinomial logistic regressions and continuous-time models that account for the lagged effect of separation. Older women have a relative advantage in keeping the home at separation and maintain this advantage in the years following the separation. This finding contrasts with prior findings concerning younger ex-couples. Exceptions are women who are significantly younger than their ex-partner, whose children remain with the father, who live at their husband's birthplace, and who rent rather than own the home. Our findings point to a principle of fairness at play in the moving-out decision among older separating couples. Nonetheless, not all women benefit from this advantage.
Journal Article
Sharing Lives, Dividing Assets
With many couples separating each year, the question of how to determine the financial and property consequences of such separation has always been a problem area within family law. Should the principles be the same for married and cohabiting couples? Should the division of assets reflect the parties’ own expectations or norms imposed by society? These are just two of the questions which the essays in this collection seek to explore. Recent cases in the House of Lords have seen willingness on the part of the judges to seek out empirical studies to inform their deliberations, but if the law is to engage with empirical data then much more information is needed, both about the arrangements people make during their relationships, and about the impact of the law when a relationship breaks down. This inter-disciplinary work brings together leading academics in the fields of law, economics, sociology and psychology in an attempt to provide some of the missing empirical information. Part I sets out the legal framework and identifies the importance of empirical studies for this area. Part II examines how couples (whether cohabitants or spouses) manage their money during their relationships. Part III then considers the impact that the law currently has on separating couples - examining how legal principles translate into reality and what their consequences are for the parties. Finally, Part IV considers the issue of legal rationality: it may be rational for the law to be shaped by patterns of behaviour, but how far will individual couples allow their behaviour to be shaped by the law?
eBook
Navigating the Murky Waters of the Former Spouses Protection Act
In 1982, it passed the Uniformed Services Former Spouses Protection Act (USFSPA).1 It is well-recognized that a case out of California saying that retirement pensions could not be treated as divisible marital property was the turning point that led to enactment of attempted clarification from Congress.2 The passage of the USFSPA was not an attempt to direct states as to how to divide retirement pensions as marital property, or even that they had to. Most members will opt to waive only so much of their retired pay as is equal to the amount of disability compensation to which they are entitled.4 The incentive to initiate this waiver is that all of the disability payments, unlike normal retirement pensions, are completely exempt from all federal and state income taxes.5 The requirement to waive part of a retirement pension prevents what is often known as \"double dipping,\" which is (in most cases) prohibited.6 It is worth noting that there does exist an exception to the standard for retirees who carry a VA disability rating of 50% or higher. [...]they elect to waive a portion of their monthly pension so they can collect that same amount in the form of tax-free disability payments. [...]for purposes of using nice, clean, round numbers, let's assume the service member is entitled to S200 per month in disability payments, given the 30% rating.14 That means the service member is forfeiting S200 per month from their regular retirement pension, half of which has been going to their spouse each month for several years. Because they waived that money, the monthly retirement payment will decrease by S200 each month, thus decreasing the ex-spouse's share by 50% of S200, or S100 per month.
Journal Article
Restitution at Home
Married couples in the US have an array of legal rights, protections, and obligations. Notably, extensive rules exist for handling property division at the dissolution of a marriage. Courts will look past which partner holds legal title to property and allow for equitable division between the spouses. This approach reflects a conception of marriage that understands the spouses' relationship as something akin to a commercial partnership, wherein each partner adds economically to the enterprise as a whole, which is in turn greater than the sum of each individual contribution. It also explicitly appreciates the economic reality that a spouse who contributes domestic labor to the partnership makes an integral contribution to the development of the partners' jointly produced property. Here, it is argued that although unjust enrichment offers a suitable legal framework for vindicating unmarried intimate partners' economic rights and preventing unjust enrichment while respecting individuals' choices regarding family formation, it must accommodate the value from partners' contributions of domestic labor to fulfill its promise. Currently, courts use two dueling approaches to resolve cases between former cohabitants: contract-based and status-based approaches.
Journal Article