Determining Where to File for Divorce in the 21st Century World of Mobile Families

                   
                   “Not all those who wander are lost.” – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

In the world of mobile families, complex international marriages and overburdened courts, would a New York court accept a divorce case, filed by the husband, an Irish resident, British passport holder and citizen of the European Union against the wife, a U.S. citizen who prefers to reside in Ireland? Apparently, the answer is yes.

In a recent Putnam County Supreme court case, Mr. S. filed for divorce in New York and his wife opposed it, claiming that New York State had no jurisdiction to end the parties’ marriage. Under New York State law, when you commence an action for divorce, the first thing that needs to happen is that the court needs to verify that there is jurisdiction.

Click here to read more.

Do Court Orders Protect from Violence or Can They Potentially Increase its Threat?

“Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.”
– Ambrose Bierce

Do any of you see disturbing patterns in recent news? Patterns where people who, as it turns out later, have mental health issues, end up snapping and committing murder? These patterns are not limited to our country and unfortunately, they are becoming more and more frequent, especially in the area of family disputes.

In September 2013, a man kidnapped his small children in Tel Aviv, Israel, and ended up throwing them off an 11-story building, then taking his own life. That man, whose name was Eli Gur was estranged from his wife. After being found “unfit for duty” and released from the police force, Gur lost his mother and was living with his brother in her house. There was a restraining order in place and he could only visit his children under a social worker’s supervision. However, the court order did not prevent him from storming into his wife’s home, choking her, snatching the children and taking off. Click here to read more.

Mediating Secondary Education in NYC

By Lara Traum (mediator with the Law Firm and Mediation Practice of Alla Roytberg, P.C.)

“He who opens a school door, closes a prison.”
― Victor Hugo

In a city of unique academic options and restrictions, parental decision-making is perhaps the single most significant force that determines a child’s educational path. Unlike the idyllic American dream that depicts a wholesome Brady bunch in a balanced local high school, successfully stumbling through a system of well meaning and artful instructors, the school system in New York City is varied, inconsistent, competitive, and without guarantee.

Just as some kindergarteners spend their afternoons with tutors, preparing for admission into elite elementary school programs, many of New York’s seventh graders spend their summers indoors, drilling for the gamble of the specialized high school’s admissions test. As competition becomes more fierce and programs become more rigorous, more and more parents are finding it necessary to adjust their children’s educational plan. Click here to read more.

Housing Issues for Families – Part 3

The House

When people own a house, their proof of ownership is a deed, and very often in a marriage, the deed states that the house is owned by both husband and the wife together. In New York State, this ownership is called “tenants by the entirety” and it means that if something happens to one of the spouses the house ownership automatically passes to the surviving spouse.

Sometimes, if parties divorce and still want to retain the house jointly in the future, they would switch their ownership from being “tenants by the entirety” to becoming “tenants in common.” A tenancy in common is a basic type of ownership by partners, where if one of the partners passes away, his or her interest gets transferred to his/her individual heirs rather than to the remaining owner. If owners are not married to each other but want the ownership of the house to pass to surviving owners, they would ordinarily state on the deed that their ownership is as “joint tenants with right of survivorship.”

In a separation or divorce, spouses have to explore various options. Click here to read more.

Does Honoring Individuality Help Resolve a Dispute?

By Lara Traum (mediator with the Law Firm and Mediation Practice of Alla Roytberg, P.C.)

“There are men who can think no deeper than a fact” – Albert Einstein.

We live in a world of absolute truths. History, math and science tell us that facts exist, that questions have answers, and that formulas can be applied to resolve many of life’s mysteries. We make firm projections about the future just as we reflect with conviction on the past. We rarely pause to wonder whether the way we experience a situation is indeed that objective – whether the person sitting next to us who has lived on the same block and eaten at the same diner and talked to the same street vendor for the past ten years has experienced the picture entirely differently.

Vantage point is the depth beyond fact that individuates personhood. But what happens when one identity has been enmeshed with another for years? Click here to read more.

Housing Issues For Families – Part 2

Condominiums

A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life; he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)

A condominium is another type of apartment; however, owning a condominium is very different from “owning” a co-op. In a condominium, owners actually own their space as real estate, as opposed to owning shares in the co-op building. They have a deed, the same way you have a deed on a house. When a person owns a condominium apartment, he/she owns whatever is inside the walls/unit and also a proportionate share of the common elements of the building. For example, if there are 4 apartments in the building, the owner would have a deed for their apartment and a 25% interest in the common elements in the building as well.

Just like with the co-op, the building has an offering plan. It has a budget and, depending on its size, they may have a management company and it can borrow money, if needed. Monthly maintenance payments in condominiums are usually called “common charges” and they relate to the unit owner’s proportionate share of the costs needed to run the building. Click here to read more.

Housing Issues For Families – Part 1

The Co-op

April 10, 2013

“A cooperative apartment is an apartment in a building owned and managed by a corporation in which shares are sold, entitling the shareholders to occupy individual units in the building.” – A Definition from Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Very often, one of the most critical disputes a family may have revolves around housing. Where will the children reside? Who stays in the marital home? Do they own or rent? If the parties own their home, it may be a condominium, a cooperative apartment (co-op) or a house. How should one structure a delayed sale, exclusive occupancy or a buyout if a family unit is restructured?

While in other states a co-op is not such a common phenomenon, in New York State, and especially in New York City, a co-op presents a frequent form of ownership for many people. Most pre-war buildings in Manhattan are co-ops and so are many in Queens, Brooklyn and other boroughs. When you own a co-op, you don’t actually own real property. There is no deed, like in a house or a condominium. Instead, your form of ownership consists of a stock certificate that represents the number of shares allocated to your unit by the cooperative corporation, i.e. the building. The co-op has a Board of officers and members. These people make a lot of decisions. If you want to sell your co-op, your purchaser will have to complete an application for Board approval. The Board can approve or deny this application if it believes that the buyer is not financially secure, or, for any other reason at all under the “business judgment rule”.  Click here to read more. 

All families are "Broken" and then "Blended"

"Marriage customs bring together two people from different lineages and place them under a common roof. By definition, marriage is a joining of unlike elements. Even when the bond is strong, a seam both connects and divides husband, wife and the web of in-laws they bring to the table. A couple’s biological offspring really are a blend, but the rest of the family is patched together."  - Ellen Lupton, "In Praise of the Broken Home", New York Times, August 2, 2010

     Imagine, that in addition to joining the "unlike elements" under a common roof and then blending the family through the birth of several children, this blended family now emigrates to the United States from a country like India, Uzbekistan or Japan and settles in the County of Queens, City and State of New York.

     To complicate matters, the older husband has a hard time mastering the language and his younger wife is able to go to school, get a job and succeed financially.  "Over there" he was an important man, who provided for his family, but "over here" life is different.  As his wife works and becomes more independent, he begins to feel worthless, while his children become Americanized and "disrespectful."  Sounds familiar?

     Unfortunately, such is the plight of many families with strong traditional ties who "uproot" themselves and move to a new country.  The rift between parents and children and husbands and wives widens and the extended family members seem unable to comprehend that sometimes adjustments must be made. "In the old country people did not divorce, the husband managed the money and the wife managed the household.  The children knew 'their place' ".

     One can only imagine the complexity of emotional and cultural issues that such a family must experience if the couple faces a divorce or a separation.   However, divorces happen more and more often and have become a regular fact of life in such courts as Queens County Supreme Court in New York City.  Queens County is the most multi-cultural county in New York State. It brings together and "blends" hundreds of nationalities into a flavorful stew of small neighborhoods, which usually peacefully interact with each other. However, when the family dispute overtakes them, many members of the extended family find fault with the national original of the other party: " I told him not to marry a girl from ____ city, they don't make good wives".. While everyone is looking for a unique reason why a divorce is inevitable, in reality it is often the unfortunate consequence of too much "breaking" and not enough "blending" in a family of recent immigrants.

      In any event, it is imperative to find a culturally sensitive solution for the separating couple and their family, - the type of a solution that would work as they struggle to preserve their national identity and, at the same time, adjust to their new American way of life in a positive way.

On Transformation of a Stressful Marriage into a Separation with Friendship

"Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth
until the hour of separation." - Kahlil Gibran

In a July 30 New York Times Article, entitled "The Un-Divorced", Pamela Paul discusses a phenomenon of long term separation as the alternative of choice to a divorce for a growing number of American couples of all ages. Often, decision to remain legally married is financial - one spouse's eligibility for the other's social security benefits or health insurance may be extinguished by a divorce.

However, for some couples, a long term separation replaces the irritable hostility of daily life with a distant friendship between two people who still care deeply about each other, but simply are unable to co-exist under the same roof. People may remain happily separated for decades until a death or a new old-fashioned romance prompts them to "legally" turn the page and move on.

For those of you who find themselves personally relating to this, please note, that it is absolutely imperative for separated couples to have a legally enforceable separation agreement. Although, by signing such an agreement, you remain eligible for each other's health and other benefits, you can definitively protect yourselves and each other against disasters, that may intervene and are outside of your or your spouse's control. If one of you becomes ill and the insurance is insufficient to cover the bills, the other spouse and his/her assets can be tapped to cover the ailing spouses medical bills. In a Separation Agreement, you can specify that each of you is responsible for his/her own debts and liabilities. You can waive rights to each other's estates, to each other's assets, homes, cars and valuables.

The money spent on a mediator to negotiate and then on lawyers to review and finalize the Separation Agreement is minimal in comparison to the financial exposure each of you would avoid in the future.

Thoughts on Anne Barnard's 02-04-09 New York Times Article "2 Doctors, a Custody Battle and an Execution-Style Killing"

"Those who hate most fervently must have once loved deeply;
those who want to deny the world must have once embraced
what they now set on fire.” --- Kurt Tucholsky"

More than a year ago, lives of people in the peaceful community of Forest Hills, in which I live and practice family law and divorce mediation have been turned upside down. Allegiances are firmly split. You MUST either hate the mother’s family or the father’s family in the glorious tradition of Montagues v. Capulets, Malakovs v. Borukhovs. A father’s life is lost. A mother is on trial for murder. A childhood destroyed.

This horrible drama has defined the dynamics of family disputes in the Bukharian community for the past year and may continue to do so for years to come. As the stories will continue to pour out of newspaper headlines during the next few weeks I invite you to explore the course of the escalation of the Malakov/Borukhova family conflict from a separation to a murder.

Did these parents know that they could choose alternative dispute resolution before coming to court? Did their attorney/judge or anyone who addressed them at the start of litigation, educate them about the existence of divorce mediation? In a close-knit community, consisting primarily of Jewish immigrants from Uzbekistan, the extended family’s role in advising the young and raising grandchildren is critical. Shouldn’t extended families be educated about how family mediation can help resolve custody disputes?