If you are seeking a divorce or have been served with divorce papers, you’ll need to resolve several divorce terms, and ensuring that your rights are protected throughout the process can take a considerable amount of time.
While divorces are pending, couples often live separately. Although there is no separation requirement in the State of Texas, living together while hammering out divorce terms can add additional stress to an already stressful situation.
As a result, obtaining temporary orders can help to ensure that any challenges regarding parenting time, living situations, and the cost of living separately are addressed fairly while the divorce is pending. Discuss your questions and concerns about temporary orders with an experienced Round Rock divorce attorney today.
Temporary Orders
While you are slogging through the divorce process, which can drag on, life’s complications are not put on hold, and issues regarding how you and your divorcing spouse will address child custody concerns and financial matters may arise.
If you are able to resolve these matters between yourselves while you wait for your divorce to be finalized, you are free to do so, but either one of you can also seek temporary orders by filing a Motion for Temporary Orders that will instigate a temporary orders hearing. These orders guide the terms addressed until the divorce is finalized – or until they are modified by the court.
Determining if You Need Temporary Orders
Not every divorcing couple requires temporary orders, but if you do, working with a practiced divorce attorney is always advised. These orders will play a pivotal role in how your divorce proceeds, which means that protecting your rights at this stage is key.
Although the orders are temporary, they often guide how final divorce terms are resolved, which makes them of primary importance. Common temporary orders include:
The matter of health insurance
The exchange of financial information in support of a fair division of marital property and the calculation of child support and alimony
The temporary use of marital property
The ongoing payment of debt
The payment of interim attorney fees
If you’re facing any of these concerns while you move forward with the divorce process, you likely need temporary orders, and your dedicated divorce attorney can help.
The Terms of Your Divorce
Ultimately, every divorcing couple has to resolve the same primary divorce terms – as applicable.
Child Custody Arrangements
Once you and your spouse divorce, you’ll need to divide your time with your children, which is accomplished through a parenting time schedule.
Texas courts determine child custody arrangements with the children’s best interests in mind, but they also begin with the belief that it is in children’s best interests to maintain a relationship with both parents and to spend a considerable amount of time with each.
Parenting Time Schedules
Texas courts have a range of standard parenting time schedules available. These begin with one parent becoming the primary custodial parent while the other has the children every other weekend and one evening a week and extend all the way to a variety of 50/50 parenting time arrangements.
It’s important to note that Texas courts consider a range of best interest factors when ordering parenting time schedules, and one of these is the status quo – or how well the children’s current living situation is serving their needs. Divorce is hard on children, and Texas courts strive to minimize jarring changes – to the degree possible – for them.
This means that if their current home, school system, and community are a good fit, the court is unlikely to make major changes to the final parenting time order. In other words, if your goal is to become the primary custodial parent, you’ll want your temporary orders to reflect this.
Legal Custody
The matter of legal custody, which addresses decision-making authority, also needs to be resolved. Legal custody determines how divorced parents make primary child rearing decisions, such as the following:
Where the children make their primary home
Where the children attend school or daycare
The medical care and treatment the children receive
The children’s participation in extracurricular activities
The children’s religious upbringing
When it comes to legal custody, you and your children’s other parent have all the following options:
One of you can take on sole legal custody, which means making these decisions on your own.
You and your children’s other parent can continue making these decisions by consensus between yourselves.
You and your children’s other parent can continue making these decisions between yourselves, but one of you will be assigned the authority to break a tie if it becomes necessary to do so.
You and your children’s other parent can divide these decisions between you according to category.
When it comes to decisions that must be made in an emergency and to everyday parenting decisions, the parent who is with the children at the time – or who is most readily available – is called upon to do so.
Child Support
Child support is calculated according to the state’s careful guidelines, which takes each parent’s earnings and the number of overnights they spend with the children – along with a range of other factors – into consideration. Generally, the parent who earns more can expect to make the child support payments – even when parenting time is split 50/50.
The Division of Marital Property
In Texas, those assets that either spouse or both spouses together acquired over the course of their marriage are considered marital property. In divorce, these assets – or their equivalent in value – must be distributed between the spouses fairly. While a fair division can mean an equal division, it doesn’t always.
The matter of what is fair when it comes to property division takes the circumstances of the marriage and divorce into consideration. For example, if the divorce is the result of one spouse’s wrongdoing – even in a no-fault divorce – it can affect how the marital property is divided.
Separate property refers to the assets that either spouse owned prior to marriage. While separate property remains the private property of the spouse who originally owned it, the matter is more complicated than this. Any commingling of finances can erode an asset’s separate nature, and any increase in an asset’s value is likely to be considered marital.
Alimony
Alimony – or spousal maintenance – is only awarded in those divorce circumstances that leave one spouse without the financial ability to adequately address their own reasonable needs – while the other spouse has the financial means to help.
Alimony is generally set for a specific amount and duration that is intended to provide the recipient with the resources necessary to gain greater financial independence through education, job training, or the acquisition of job skills.
The length of the marriage and the standard of living achieved during the marriage are important factors when it comes to alimony determinations – as are factors like the following:
Each spouse’s separate estate, as well as the size of the overall marital estate
The contributions each spouse made to the marriage, including in relation to homemaking and childcare
The contributions and sacrifices either spouse made in support of the other’s career or earning potential
Each spouse’s earning capacity
Each spouse’s age and overall mental and physical health
Each spouse’s level of education
The recipient’s prospects in terms of job availability
The matter of wrongdoing on the part of either spouse
The Temporary Orders Hearing
Texas temporary orders hearings are evidentiary hearings in which witnesses can testify or submit statements, evidence is introduced, and both sides make submissions. Depending upon the complexity of the case and the situation involved, the judge may request that the couple first try mediation.
Mediation
At mediation, you and your divorce attorney – along with your divorcing spouse and theirs – will meet with a professional mediator who will help you explore your options and come to a mutually acceptable resolution. The mediator serves the role of a neutral third party who will help you better understand how the court is likely to rule in your case.
Mediation allows you to keep decision-making authority between yourselves, but If it isn’t ultimately successful, you’ll proceed to the temporary orders hearing.
At Your Hearing
At your temporary orders hearing, the judge is tasked with balancing you and your spouse’s rights while keeping your children’s best interests at the forefront. The focus is on all the following:
Marital property issues, including who will remain in the marital home
The matter of bill paying
The matter of each spouse’s income while the divorce proceeds
Temporary orders only stay in effect – as the name implies – temporarily. Once your divorce is finalized, the final terms go into effect, and the temporary orders no longer have any bearing. As mentioned, however, temporary orders often guide final orders. In other words, not putting effort into your temporary orders because they’re temporary is not going to serve you well.
Bringing your strongest case and advocating for temporary orders that support your rights and best interests helps to ensure favorable divorce terms.
FAQ
The answers to the following frequently asked questions about temporary orders may help with some of your own.
What are temporary orders?
Temporary orders are orders that are handed down by the court to address basic parental and financial terms while a divorce is happening. Divorces can take a considerable amount of time, and as they process, issues related to parenting time and financial concerns often arise. Temporary orders help smooth the way forward.
Does every divorcing couple need temporary orders?
If your divorce is proceeding full speed ahead and you and your divorcing spouse are on the same page regarding terms, you likely don’t need temporary orders. It’s more common, however, for couples to need a considerable amount of time to resolve their divorce terms fairly. In these instances, temporary orders are generally a good idea.
Is the temporary orders hearing informal?
No, the temporary orders hearing is a full evidentiary hearing that is a formal legal matter. Although the terms handed down are temporary, they are likely to affect your final orders, and you should take the hearing just as seriously as you would a final divorce hearing.
Does having temporary orders mean my case will go to trial?
No, seeking temporary orders does not mean that your case will necessarily be resolved in court. The vast majority of Texas divorces are settled out of court, and yours is very likely to do the same.
In fact, your temporary orders are a fairly decent indicator of how the court is likely to rule in your case, which may give you and your divorcing spouse the boost you need to resolve your divorce terms between yourselves.
Look to an Experienced Round Rock Divorce Attorney for the Help You Need
Brett Pritchard at The Law Office of Brett H. Pritchard – proudly serving Round Rock, Texas, for decades – is a trusted divorce attorney who appreciates the significance of your temporary orders and is committed to harnessing the full force of his considerable experience in focused protection of your financial and parental rights from the outset.
For more information about what we can do to help you, please don’t hesitate to contact or call us at 254-781-4222 to schedule a free consultation today.