Demystifying Legal Terms in a Divorce

Any legal process uses legal terms that the common man is not familiar with and so is the case with divorce too. People have umpteen questions about the process and its procedures. Let us demystify the most common legal terms used in divorces:

Divorce – is legal action taken to dissolve a marriage. The divorce terminates a married relationship before the demise of spouse.

No fault divorce – here there is hardly any need to state grounds of divorce. The person desiring the divorce would be grated one if he or she can prove that the relationship is broken irretrievably.

Legal Separation – very similar to divorce but they continue to be married. The marriage is not broken here, just their responsibilities towards each other is terminated. The procedure for securing a legal separation is similar to getting a divorce with petitions to be filed, future of children decided, debts and assets to be divided etc.

Annulment – this is also legal dissolution of marriage but after annulment, the marriage was never existent. The children in an annulment are legal but spouses can go back to their single status.

Child Custody – in divorces involving children, child custody has to be determined. Since parents have decided to part, decisions with regard to who will be held responsible, where will the children live, who would take decisions for them etc are issues that need sorting out. Child custody is of two types, legal custody and physical custody.

Child Support – in divorces where joint custody has been awarded to parents, financial support has to be paid to custodial parent by non custodial parent towards the needs and requirements of their child. The amount of is decided by the family court after considering financial situations of both parents.

Visitation Rights – joint custody decrees one parent as primary and custodial parent while the other parent is awarded visitation rights. These rights allow the parent to visit his child during predetermined days or according to specified visitation routine that has been passed by the court.

Spousal Support – many times, the dependent spouse would have to be given temporary financial assistance for a period of time so that she can gain marketable skills in order to be able to support herself.

Marital Agreement – when spouses are not at war with each other, they can discuss and settle most of the issues that crop up during a divorce. They can work out child support, spousal support, child custody, visitation routines, division of property etc. All that is discussed and agreed upon should be used to draw up an agreement known as the marital agreement that is submitted in the family court and is subjected to acceptance form judge and thereby binding to both spouses.