New York Family Legal Questions

If she decides to go after the property value, then yea her attorney will be able to get that done since she contributed towards the expense and mortgage. However, if you can pay her back in a lump sum through bank wire, as evidence you can get rid of her interest in the property that way.   Above answer and comments to questions are for general purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or establishes an attorney-client relationship without a signed retainer. Please reach out to an attorney you are comfortable with working and discussing your case in more details.... Read More

Follow the text message and contact a lawyer to help you go through the hearing etc. Most likely she might be looking for divorce and stuff. Reply to the text for more information about the summon. And ask them for a paper mail, and date of hearing. Find and hire a lawyer that you would feel comfortable working with.... Read More

You have a couple of issues going on. First, eviction; Second Custody; Third Financial Support; Fourth Failing Marriage, here is what I think: First EVICTION: Like he moved out and went to his mom, is there any relative you can go to? I would prefer that you go to the shelter and see if they can get you accommodation. If you have the child with you when you go to the shelter, they usually expedite the waiting process and provide temporary housing // apartment. This would be one benefit you would attain by going to the shelter compared to go to a relative or a friend.   Second CUSTODY: You should look into establishing custody for the child and seek primary custody of your son as I am assuming because you were unemployed for 3 years, you were looking after the son as your primary responsibility. You will be able to get child support payments from the father if and when you get custody in place.   Third Financial Support: Going to the shelter, pursuing child support, and filing for divorce and seeking Alimony from your husband will be able to lift you back up and stabilize your situation and steer you in the direction to be independent again and seek employment. Fourth Divorce: More than likely, the way your husband is reacting and behaving sounds like he has abandoned you and looking to move on without you. The way I provided the answer to you he might be using and thinking the same thing to use the child, shelter, support and alimony. I understand you mention you have no money and you will have no place to live in 6 days it really difficult to find a free attorney. But you can go to Family Court and see if they get assign you a free lawyer. I would love to work with you but I would have to provide a really low priced retainer. Give me a call if you would like to work with me or you can go to the family court and get a free attorney that can help you out as well. Looking forward to hearing from you. Above answer and comments to questions are for general purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or establishes an attorney-client relationship without a signed retainer. Please reach out to an attorney you are comfortable with working and discussing your case in more details.... Read More

Your best option would be to work with a competent immigration attorney that can go over some options with you in private to get what you want to be done. Above answer and comments to questions are for general purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or establishes an attorney-client relationship without a signed retainer. Please reach out to an attorney you are comfortable with working and discussing your case in more details.... Read More

A competent New York attorney will be able to get you full custody. We as attorneys would need to review the details of the case in order to plan out a strategy to win full custody of the children. Above answer and comments to questions are for general purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or establishes an attorney-client relationship without a signed retainer. Please reach out to an attorney you are comfortable with working and discussing your case in more details.... Read More

Divorce by publication is not easy or cheap. Without knowing the full facts of the case, you might want to try and locate her by contacting her immediate relatives and when you get a confirmation that so and so the person is in contact with her you can have your divorce papers served to the relatives so that they can let her know. That is one option. If you are also a citizen of Indonesia, you can certainly try to get a court-divorced over there. It might be cheaper and faster to get it over there than in USA.   Above answer and comments to questions are for general purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or establishes an attorney-client relationship without a signed retainer. Please reach out to an attorney you are comfortable with working and discussing your case in more details.... Read More

The court order will still be considered valid if there has not been an amendment. However, if you do decide to move with the children, the Father can opt to go to court and get his lawyer to amend/modify the custody order, based on the new facts of the case. The new facts of the case he will most-likely to use would be that you have a history of running around and want to heist the kids to deny him visitation or parental rights. His lawyer will also try to fabricate accusations to request the judge that kids are old enough now and can make a decision on there own, to which the judge might request that the children are represented by a lawyer of their own to represent their views. This does not have to end up like this in court unless you and the kids' father can work something out without the need of a lawyer. If the other parent is not being cooperative, you should seek a lawyer to represent and defend your interests.   Above answer and comments to questions are for general purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or establishes an attorney-client relationship without a signed retainer. Please reach out to an attorney you are comfortable with working and discussing your case in more details.... Read More

Believe it or not, the fact that the father is incarcerated would not have been an automatic bar to visitation with his son, had he not otherwise lost his right to visitation. If he could have shown he had a meaningful relationship with your son before the incarceration, a court might have compelled you to bring your son to the prison for visits. However, while the order of protection is in effect, the father's petition for visitation will be denied. Your OP (order of protection) has specific language about how far away the father is to keep from you and your son. If the father violates the OP, call the police immediately. If and when the father is awarded visitation in the future, depending on your son's age, it will likely start off as supervised or therapeutic visitation, and the father will be required to take parenting classes. Despite the fact that the father currently has no visitation with your son and likely will not have any for the foreseable future, unless the father gave you permission to move out of state with your son, you must file a petition for leave of court to relocate to another state. You'll need to prove by a preponderance of evidence that it is in your son's best interests to move by offering proof of good schools, employment for you, and family present in new location. The safety factor will weigh heavily in your favor, and if you move (in-state or out of state) you should be allowed to keep your address confidential from the father if you prove you and your child will be in danger if he knows where you live.  Assuming you at least have a decent place to live and means of supporting yourself, you have a very good chance of having your petition to relocate to another state granted.  In order to have his petition for a downward modification of his child support obligation granted, the father must prove a substantial and unexpected change in his financial circumstances. Given that he's being released from prison, which will allow him to increase his income, his petition will be denied. ... Read More

Under New York law, anyone over the age of 18 and competent can be "head" of the estate (executor) of anyone else, if appointed in a properly drafted last will and testament. You don't have to be adopted to collect a bequest in a will, either, unless the bequest is only left to a class designated as "children" or "issue". In that case, you wouldn't collect unless you were adopted. But if the bequest is left to you by name, you will collect it. It all depends on the will being properly drafted. ... Read More

What your ex is doing is worse than extortion- he's been stealing $400/month from your kids. Child support is for your children, not for you. His agreement with you is illegal, and he must pay you back the $100/ week child support that you gave him. If he refuses, tell him you'll file a petition for back child support in your local family court in Connecticut, and he'll have to come to Connecticut to defend it.   And don't pay him another cent!... Read More

If two people own real property together and disagree about who gets to live in it or whether it should be sold, the solution is a partition action. In such an action, the judge orders a judicial sale of the property and the proceeds are divided between the two owners. This is absolutely the worst way to sell property because in addition to all the normal fees of a home sale, the owners also pay court costs. But sometimes there is no choice. A property owner always has the right to ask the court to order the property sold if that is the only way the owner can get to use his or her share of the property.  ... Read More

It's impossible to say how the equity will be divided unless I know who's been living in the house, and who's been paying not just the mortgage but taxes and upkeep. This is a math problem. Even  if you've been living in the house with the kids and he hasn't, the mortgage payments are not necessarily a substitute for child support. You need to figure out, based on his salary, what he should have been paying you these past 6 years (you can only sue for child support going back 6 years) and what he did pay you, and what if anything else he owes you/ you owe him, and that will tell you if he currently owes you money.  If you don't know his actual salary (and unless you've seen his tax returns, you don't, and if he runs his own business even the tax returns might not telll the whole story) it's unlikely you'll ever find out without taking him to court- which is what you should do. You need to have a child support order in place, for your kids's sake. The child support is for them, so you need to crunch the numbers and figure out if their dad's been paying his fair share, and usually that's impossible without the help of a court, where everyone's forced to turn over tax returns.  ... Read More

Your daughter's father is well within his rights to want the information he is seeking. Whether you are living with a girlfriend or boyfriend is beside the point. Your last intended living arrangement for your daughter was to share "a room and bed" with you- which is completely inappropriate- and you now live with your girlfriend.  He is right to be concerned. Give him all the information he wants, and make sure your daughter has her own bed. ... Read More

You are correct, you need a New York lawyer, but you may need one who practices in guardianships, depending on the facts.  You haven't mentioned whether your sister is temporarily or permanently disabled, and the nature of her disability.  Assuming she is permanently disabled and unable to make decisions for herself, contact your brother-in-law and/or niece and offer to help by contacting Medicare to help arrange services for your sister. They may just be overwhelmed.  If that doesn't work, you can get the Department of Social Services involved by having a social worker sent to their home, who can help them obtain and coordinate services. If that still doesn't work, and your sister is being mistreated, you can file a petition in court for guardianship of your sister.  But obviously that is not the place to start.  You need to start with a conversation with your sister (if she is able to have one) and then a non-accusatory conversation with your brother-in-law and niece. They may welcome your help.  ... Read More

The savings of the non-custodial parent definitely factors into a child support determination. If paying child support would bring your savings below the minimum self-support reserve of $16,281, the court might allow you to pay little or no child support, depending on various other factors. ... Read More

If the house was purchased during the marriage with marital assets (money not obtained before the marriage or through an inheritance or accident settlement), in the event of a divorce, you'd be entitled rlto half the rent and half the value of the property. If the house was purchased before the marriage you don't have rights to the property but you do have a right to half the rental income.... Read More

You can call the police, but they will do exactly nothing, because your court order is so ambiguous. (Even if it wasn't, police are not inclined to enforce visitation orders that don't specifically require police involvement.) You need to go to court and file two petitions: for violation of the existing visitation order, and for modification of it. You have a nice flexible visitation order that is a recipe for disaster for two divorced parents. You and your ex need to set a definite visitation schedule- which days per week, exactly what hours, who picks up, who drops off, and where- which then needs to become a court order. I'm guessing neither one of you had a lawyer. No lawyer would have let you walk out of court with that visitation schedule. ... Read More

It's not easy to win grandparent visitation. First, your mother must prove she has "standing", by showing she already has a significant and special relationship with your son, and overcoming any of your objections, which the court is required to consider. If your mother proves she has standing, the court then considers whether visitation is in the best interests of your son and again, your objections will be considered. A "best interests hearing" may be required before the court makes a decision. If you can prove everything you mentioned, it is unlikely your mother will win visitation.... Read More

Maybe. I assume you are in the middle of a divorce or contemplating one, although you don't say so. It depends on many factors: whether this been going on throughout the marriage or started only since the divorce of discussion of divorce, whether the funds come from your income or only your wife's income, what percentage of your wife's income and your joint savings/assets is being used / has been used to financially support your inlaws, etc. If your wife is funnelling money to her parents as a way to dissipate marital assets, the numbers will prove it. ... Read More