April 2018 Archives

Research out of Ohio shows that gray divorce is on the rise. Couples in this situation have unique issues to address during the divorce.

Shared parenting is preferred among many family law advocates as being beneficial for children and parents alike.

In July, an Ohio couple traveled to Maryland to get married. It was not a fancy wedding; in fact, the ceremony took place on a plane on the tarmac of a Baltimore airport. By the time the two were married, they had been together for over 20 years. One spouse has a terminal illness and does not want to be listed as single on his death certificate. In addition, the two want to be buried in the same family plot, which is only available for direct descendants and spouses. Because the couple is a same-sex couple, they are not able to get married in their home state of Ohio.

The Ohio Revised Code sets out the factors that the courts consider when awarding alimony in a divorce case. These considerations include income, earning ability, age, length of marriage, standard of living and the parties' education. This list gives a person an idea of what the court is going to look at, in general, to determine what is a reasonable amount of alimony. Unfortunately, the Code is not so clear on what happens when a person's circumstances change after the award is entered.

In Ohio, and many other states, when it comes to nursing home issues the quick answer is no, they will not take your home. Contrary to what you have heard Medicaid does not take your home or anything else. All Medicaid does is determine whether it will pay for nursing home care or not. If your assets exceed the guidelines they will not pay. If your assets are lower than the guidelines they will pay. If you do not qualify for Medicaid you simply need to make arrangements to directly pay the nursing home from your individual assets.

There are many people, and attorneys, who think avoiding probate court is a good idea. This is most often accomplished through a living, or inter vivos, trust. It is true that sometimes avoiding probate court can be less expensive, quicker and simpler, but sometimes probate court can save all your assets. When a trust is established to avoid probate court a trustee is named in the event of death. People will name a trustee whom they trust. When asked if a bond should be required most clients answer no. A bond is essentially an insurance policy that protects the trust against financial misconduct or stolen money. They say I would not name him/her trustee if I did not trust them. Upon death, the trustee then takes complete control of the assets without any supervision from anyone. Unsupervised trusts can go on for many years. All people have weaknesses, some are not always trustworthy and, others can feel the effects of their own economic pressures. I have been involved in many cases where trustees, those who have complete control of the money, fall prey either to greed, bad financial times, or just are bad at money management. Many times the trustee may "just take a loan" from the trust but loans are not authorized transactions and seldom get repaid. By the time anyone realizes something is wrong, the money is gone and very often it cannot be recovered.

This question comes up in many estates and often causes ill will and litigation. The normal scenario is a parent who may be feeble or ill. One child provides the primary care. It may just be in the form of running errands, transporting to doctor visits and daily checks. It might also escalate to living with the parent and providing full time care. This can go on for months or years. Eventually the parent dies and a dispute arises between the siblings. This can also arise if the care provider is an extended relative or friend. You might even have a situation where someone quits their job to provide the full time care and/or provides all the cost for shelter and food for the parent.

According to Ohio law, it is illegal to start your car, even on your own on your driveway, then go back in the house, to warm up and defrost the car when it is cold outside. Any car when running must be "attended". Even if it is locked you could be cited, pay up to $150 fine plus court costs (usually about $125). Frankly, it might even apply to a car in your garage with the door open. It absolutely applies to cars on the street.

The Columbus Dispatch recently reported that research shows that baby boomers are, for their age group, opting to divorce in record numbers after reevaluating their marriages.

By: Peter R. Certo, Jr. Attorney at Law. Ohio Super Lawyer, AV Preeminent (peer review rated), Ohio Super Lawyer, past two- term chair of the Dayton Bar Association Criminal Law Section, former Acting Dayton Municipal Court Judge, former prosecutor.

Nearly every divorce will result in both parties experiencing a difference in their financial situation. When a household splits into two, each spouse can suffer the loss of the other's support in income. The situation can be especially difficult if one spouse had stayed at home to raise children. It's for this reason that spousal support still exists, although many states have been making changes to their alimony laws to prevent one ex-spouse from paying alimony for life.

When you are about to get married the last thing you think about is estate planning. However, for a second or late-in-life marriage, it is the first thing you should think about. This is especially true when there are children or other family members you need to protect. All too often attorneys in domestic relations cases and probate attorneys see the end result of poor planning. Classically what happens is a substantial part of someone's assets go to the second spouse, either through a death or divorce, rather than their own children. Highlighted below are areas of law that can be used to protect family and close friends in the estate process. Note that this article is based on Ohio law. If you do not live in Ohio please contact an attorney in your state.

As everyone knows, the childhood years are formative and every experience will have an impact on how children grow up and deal with the world. It's therefore unsurprising when studies show that children with divorced parents can end up with long-lasting emotional pain that may affect their choices and experiences as adults. While children of divorceusually go through a great deal of pain during the initial divorce process, there are things that parents can do to help children through this period and minimize the chances of long-term damage.

The handling of estates and uncovering a person's assets is becoming more difficult with the advent of digital assets. This is becoming a complex issue in handling the assets of a decedent, stroke victim, or someone who suffers from a mental disability. In the "old days", we would merely look through the mail to obtain the monthly statements from financial institutions. Now with people increasingly opting out of paper statements and going "paperless" it is much more burdensome to accumulate information. If all a person's assets are available only through websites, some or all of those assets may go unfound, if an executor does not know where to look. Even if the executor does know of assets, the lack of user names and passwords will prevent access. Complicating matters further, many services require/encourage a change of passwords on a regular basis. So even if a disclosure of passwords is made, it will need to be amended over time. If the decedent used a "biometric" password, aka a fingerprint, that will make it impossible to access those accounts.

This article addresses Ohio domestic related civil protection orders, aka CPO, and not criminal temporary protection orders aka TPO.

For many years now if you possessed marijuana, or had any drug conviction, you were assessed a driver license suspended for a minimum of 6 months to a maximum 5 years. This suspension was mandatory and a judge did not have any discretion in this matter. This would happen even if the possession had nothing to do with a motor vehicle. Then, if that individual applied for a job or had an insurance update the words "DRUG SUSPENSION" appeared on the print out. This made many people unable to get a job or lose a job they had. It would also cause insurance rates to increase and they had to pay costly reinstatement fees. This made the penalties very severe.

A crime is anything a legislature says it is. For hundreds of years a crime was committed if someone had criminal intent or mens rea. That is, you had to intend to do something criminal, also known as malice aforethought. Crime was defined by the act, not the result. Now it seems more crimes are defined by the result, not the act.