There are numerous child custody concerns that need to be addressed as part of divorce proceedings. The resolution of these issues can have a huge influence on your children for years to come, so it is important to understand what a typical child custody proceeding entails.

Types of Custody

In Wisconsin, there are two types of custody, and both types must be negotiated or litigated during a divorce case. The first type is called legal custody, which refers to the right of a parent to decide major life decisions for their child. These determinations include where a child will go to school and attend church, as well as decisions about medical care issues. In many cases, a court will allow both parents to have a say in these decisions.

The second type of custody in Wisconsin is physical placement, which refers to where a child lives. This type of custody could be sole or joint. Even if one parent has sole custody, the other parent may have visitation rights as well as legal custody rights.

Property division is a component of any divorce, and in a high net worth divorce, this issue can be complex and hotly contested. Such divorces may require the assistance of forensic accountants to review voluminous financial documents and tax specialists to determine the tax costs and implications of dividing or transferring ownership of property.

Dividing Large and Complex Assets

It is usually accepted that a high net worth divorce involves liquid assets totaling more than $1 million. Those who fit this description often have a variety of businesses and accounts that have been created in order to take advantage of tax laws as well as to diversify assets.

In all cases of asset division, an attorney will first seek to identify what property is part of the marital estate. In Wisconsin, any property acquired or income earned by either spouse during the marriage is considered community property. 

Determining child support is an important component of the divorce process for couples who have children. Child support is seen by the courts as a way to protect children from the economic instability that could come from divorce.

Child support should be used to meet all of the child’s needs, such as housing, food, transportation, and medical care. It should also be used for items that may not be necessities but are things that the child became accustomed to during the marriage, such as camps and extracurricular activities.

If you are in a situation in which one parent has the children less than 25 percent of the overnight stays each year, then that parent will be the paying parent, and his or her income will be used. Child support will be calculated based on the following percentages of the paying parent’s gross income:

As the saying goes, the only thing that is constant is change. While your initial divorce decree may have worked for you and your family at the time, these orders may need to be updated throughout the years, and it is important for divorced spouses to understand the processes that must be followed when making post-divorce modifications.

People may seek changes to child custody, child support, and spousal maintenance orders. Circumstances leading to a change in child custody orders include:

• Parent relocation
• A parent re-marrying and/or the addition of half-siblings or step-siblings
• Changes in children’s schools
• Changes in children’s extracurricular activities
• The emergence of a child’s medical condition

Alimony and child support modifications may be granted if there has been a change in the payor’s income. Child support modifications may also be granted if the child requires more or less support or if changes to child custody arrangements have increased or decreased the amount of time a child spends with a parent. 

Divorce is common in the United States, and every day, people choose to end their marriages for a variety of reasons. However, many people choose to say married for financial reasons. When two people have merged their lives, one spouse may become financially dependent on the other, and in these cases, the dependent person may believe that he or she has no option other than to stay in the marriage despite wanting a divorce.

In this scenario, Wisconsin courts will entertain a request for spousal maintenance, which is commonly referred to as alimony. A spouse may seek spousal maintenance regardless of how the marriage ended.

It is important to keep in mind the purpose of alimony. Spousal maintenance is not meant to punish a party. Rather, it is meant to support one spouse and allow them to maintain the standard of living they were accustomed to during the marriage.