Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hi. I'm Steve Kramer of the Kramer Law Firm. I'm a Florida
family law and divorce attorney. And today's topic is financial
affidavits. What is a financial affidavit? A financial affidavit
is a document that discloses current income, assets,
expenses, liabilities. Basically, it's a breakdown of
everything that you own, everything that you earn,
everything that you owe. And the reason we have to have these is
it's mandatory that you file a financial affidavit in the state
of Florida and it's also mandatory you do it the right
way. In fact, if after your divorce or after the paternity
action there is any accusation of fraud and it turns out to be
true it can wipe out the divorce entirely. It can wipe out the
paternity action and you can find yourself back in the same
position you started in, only hurt by the credibility threat
of having an allegation of some kind of fraud against you. It's
important to do a financial affidavit right and one of the
things that needs to be done right is breaking down martial
and non-martial assets. For example, if you got an
inheritance from your family and you never co-mingled it, meaning
mixed together with your spouse's money, then it's
probably going to be exempt from the marriage. And on your
financial affidavit, you're going to want to put the
checkmark in the non-marital asset column. The same thing
applies to a marital asset or a marital debt. If together you
accrued a debt, you're going to want to put that in the marital
column. Whereas your spouse incurred the debt that had no
bearing on the marriage, no relation to marriage - they call
that "non-marital." And these are all issues that are going to
come up in what we call "equitable distribution" which
is how we break everything apart. It's how we divide assets
after a divorce or during a divorce in Florida. Why am I
telling you this? Because financial affidavits and
disclosure of your financial conditions is mandatory in every
divorce, in every paternity action, and it's important to do
it the right way. Because ultimately, it should save you
money, it should put you in a better position, it should
protect your rights and protect your position and it's in your
interest to do it the right way. I deal with this all the time.
If you have any questions, call me at the number below. I
appreciate you watching this video. If you're watching it on
YouTube or Facebook, click on the "Like" button below. That
way your family and friends can benefit on the information I'm
providing you. Thanks for watching. I'm Steve Kramer of
the Kramer Law Firm.