Can't they renegotiate? This is inhumane. Seriously.
I think more along the lines of amending divorce settlements after the fact, on whatever grounds. I guess we're talking about revisions due to making less money, etc. How to go about it, and if it's a deal where it would cost more to change things. I know settlements differ, but some of these poor guys sound like they're on the hook unto perpetuity.
Aside, I've been meaning to ask you a few questions, stemming from Peter David's divorce (who is American), wherein he came home one day to find half his bank account drained during a salad year. He and his ex-wife dwindled those monies to nothing fighting each other -- and now the IRS has come to collected on it, because he wasn't able to pay taxes that year due to the divorce (he owes upwards of 88K). It seemed suspicious to me, because he opened a GoFundMe. So I was wondering: how the fuck does that happen? Like, couldn't he say all the money was spent for the divorce, and thus he had no income? But moreover: Is divorce that expensive? No one seemed to gain ANYTHING, but I'm running on partial info. I don't know what the original figures were, but it sounded like he had no more money than what was in his account that year. And so everything he made, was simply gone. I don't know if he had to pay alimony or whatever, but it just raised all sorts of questions.
Any insight you can provide on the whole thing would be appreciated. I think guys would like to get a little information against the superstition that we're automatically screwed. I know going to a lawyer is step one, but this is sort of like preparing before you take your car into the mechanic so he doesn't fuck you over alongside your bitch-ass ex-wife who was supposed to love, honor, and cherish. But now you wish she'd just perish.
I'll try address each guy one at a time. Bear in mind I do not have all the facts, but I've done a bit of digging, and tried to deduce what's probably going on. Also keep in mind I don't know California law.
1) Brendan Fraser - I'm speculating a bit for his situation, but I suspect his problem is that alimony was negotiated and not litigated, and that his separation agreement doesn't provide much flexibility for adjusting the payments. Typically if alimony is litigated, the court will look at the evidence of the parties' financial positions and determine if alimony should be paid, and if so, then how much. If circumstances change after the order is granted, the parties can usually apply to vary the support order to adjust the amount payable, but it depends on the legislation in place in the jurisdiction.
However, not everyone litigates alimony, most people negotiate a separation agreement. The thing is those are binding contracts, and the courts are loathe to change what the parties agreed to. Where this becomes a problem is when the parties don't set out terms for when or how alimony can be adjusted. If a separation agreement just says that the husband will pay the wife $2000 a month in alimony for five years then that is what he'll have to do, no matter what happens to his or her financial circumstances. Therefore, a "good" separation agreement will go further and say whether the occurrence of certain events will warrant the renegotiation of alimony. For example, my separation agreements that I draft for clients will usually say that the parties can renegotiate alimony if the husband's salary goes down by $10,000 a year, if the wife's goes up by $10,000 a year, or if the wife marries someone else or lives with a new boyfriend for more than 3 consecutive years.
From what I've read, that's the source of Fraser's problem: his agreement was too restrictive on the conditions for when alimony could be adjusted. After looking around I found a story that said his agreement said that he couldn't adjust alimony until he started earning less than $3 million per year. At some point he tried taking his wife to court to reduce the alimony and failed because he wasn't able to provide evidence that he was earning less than that. That was a few years ago, so I imagine he must be free from that $900k per year bill, but I'm not sure.
2) Dave Foley's situation is easier for me to comment on because it's in Canada. Even though I practice law in Alberta, not Ontario, the Divorce Act is federal legislation, in force across Canada, and child support is dictated by the Federal Child Support Guidelines.
Foley's problem appears to also be related to a separation agreement, and I say that because the article I read vaguely referred to one, but also because the calculation for the breakdown of his $17k per month in child support in one article said the child support was $10k per month that was "agreed to" when they initially split, but that that number has increased to $12k because of cost of living increases. That doesn't make sense to me because child support doesn't work like that - "cost of living" for the recipient of child support is completely irrelevant under the Guidelines, so I suspect it must have been part of their separation agreement. The remaining $5k per month he owes is because he fell into arrears on the support he owes. Once a payor misses enough payments the recipient can go to court to get an order for arrears to stack on top of the monthly amount regularly owing. So Foley owes $12k per month for ongoing support plus $5k per month for arrears (which arrears are apparently a staggering $500,000+ !!).
Foley has apparently tried to apply to court to reduce the child support and failed, because he hasn't provided reliable or convincing disclosure of his financial circumstances. Without sufficient evidence the court will decline to change support. So really Foley needs to get a good accountant to put together all his financial information and a good lawyer, and then he could have the support lowered and maybe have some of those arrears wiped out too.
One thing that shocked me about Foley's situation is that he can apparently be jailed for the child support arrears. I did not know Ontario allowed that. We certainly don't have anything like that in Alberta. While child support is a federally regulated area of law, the enforcement of child support orders is provincially regulated. In Alberta, if you fall behind on child support they can suspend your drivers license, confiscate your passport, register a writ on title to your home or your car, garnish your wages or garnish your bank account, but no jail. That's dumb. How are you supposed to earn money to pay child support from a jail cell?
3) Peter David I think you asked two questions, one about the IRS and the other about the cost of a divorce. Regarding the IRS, if he spent all his money on legal fees he can't use that as an excuse to get out of income tax owing from that year, because legal expenses are not tax deductible for individuals, only corporations (because they're consider a business expense as "professional fees" - lawyers, accountants etc.) so the IRS is only going to care about the income he earned that year, not what happened to it.
Your second question, about the cost of a divorce. Well, the short answer is "it depends" (which is the answer to all legal questions). There's a number of factors. What is the price for the lawyers (ie their billable rate)? Are there children? Is alimony going to be in play or are the spouses reasonably financially independent? How much matrimonial property is there? And by far the absolute most important factor is "can the divorcing spouses get along?" The more you fight, the more you pay.
Was there anything else you wanted to know?
