Timing is everything...
Over the holidays, my little brother (who just got accepted to Lewis & Clark law school – yay!) told the fam a story about a client he encountered at his workplace a few weeks ago. He works for a non-profit agency in Minneapolis that helps low income people prepare their income tax returns at no cost, and was helping a client with taxes from 2006 that he hadn't filed yet. After filling the fellow's name on the 1040, the next box was a pretty easy one to complete: marital status. Unfortunately, the client did not know if he was single or married, which shocked my brother, but is unfortunately not as uncommon as you may think. What you may not know is how the timing of the divorce process and delaying the inevitable can have serious impact on your life.
The most obvious situation where timing is important is if you have been served with a petition for divorce by your spouse. It may be easy to overlook, but attached to the petition is a summons, which requires the recipient to respond with an answer within 30 days. Telling your soon-to-be-ex that you disagree with the petition is not what is meant by an “answer”. If you are in this situation, you need to talk to an attorney immediately – if you fail to respond within the allotted time, or if your response is not in the correct form, your spouse could move forward by “default” and be awarded everything they ask for without your input being considered. Not a good situation.
Deciding when to petition for divorce is very important as well, though not as dramatically as the above situation. Looking again at the Summons which accompanies every divorce, there is a provision that bars your spouse from wasting money or assets and from canceling insurance coverage – both very important items. Also, it is presumed that a divorcing couple's assets will be valued as of the first court date (usually an initial case management conference in the metro counties) that takes place. This can be very important if one spouse decides to purchase that new Mercedes just before being filed with divorce papers, or takes that trip to Vegas to sit in the high-roller slots area. If this asset wasting takes place after the valuation date... not your problem. If the purchases take place before – congratulations, you may be the owner of a Mercedes (and the accompanying loan) that you never wanted.
If you have been served with a petition for divorce, or are thinking about starting the divorce process, contact our attorneys today to set up a free consultation where we can provide more specific information about your individual situation and give you a road map through the divorce process in Minnesota.