When you face the need to separate from your spouse, you may have different legal options at your disposal. A qualified family law attorney is the best resource for information as you try to determine what is the right course of action. Whether you opt for a legal separation, annulment, divorce or declaration of invalidity, the help of the right legal team will ensure that you receive the best possible advice.

Seattle Annulments

For some couples, annulment provides the best solution for their marital concerns. Annulment serves to declare a marriage “null and void.” It is different from a divorce in that an annulment means that legally the marriage never took place, even though it physically did. In most jurisdictions, it is null and void from the date of the original marriage. This option often works well for couples who have a moral or religious reason for avoiding divorce.

Divorce

Divorce is the legal ending of a marriage. In a divorce, the marriage is completely acknowledged, but it is legally severed. Couples often must go through the process of dividing the marital estate in a divorce, which is what makes having an attorney on hand so valuable.

Legal Separation

A legal separation does not end a marriage union. However, the couple is under a court order that will limit the contact between them. They live separate lives while remaining legally married. Couples often still divide their assets and negotiate child custody arrangements, and some will follow through with a divorce after the legal separation.

Declaration of Invalidity Seattle

A final option for ending a marriage is the declaration of invalidity. This is similar to an annulment, but is only offered in a few states. It also requires that certain criteria be true about the marriage, such as one party was unable to consent to the marriage at the time of the union due to mental incapacity, drug use or infirmity. Like an annulment, this process simply declares the marriage invalid and it is treated like it never occurred.

Because of the variety of options before you when considering this process, you need the services of a qualified family law attorney. Contact us at Eagle Law Offices, P.S. (206) 426-6961 to learn more about your options and what we can do to help.

Who Qualifies
In order to register as a domestic partner, the couple either needs to be the same gender or have one member who is age 62 or older. Other wise, if neither person is married or already in a domestic partnership with another party, they are not near relatives and they are both old enough and mentally capable enough to commit to being in a domestic partnership, Washington allows them to formally register their relationship.

Protections for Domestic Partners
Registering as domestic partners give a couple the right to certain benefits, such as recognition on a death certificate, the legal right to visit in the hospital and the legal right to medical decision making, among other benefits.
Once a couple enters into a domestic partnership, they begin to share common property, responsibility for financial matters and parenting responsibilities. Domestic partners are also protected under domestic violence laws. In many ways, they are treated legally just like a married couple, just without the terminology.

Ending a Domestic Partnership
Sometimes, as with marriages, couples who have registered as domestic partners find themselves ready to dissolve the relationship. Because of the formal registration, this process demands legal attention, similar to the dissolution of a marriage. The division of common property, creation of a parenting plan and even setting up spousal support can all affect the dissolution of domestic partnerships. Because of this, many couples seek professional help in order to protect their rights.

If you find yourself facing difficulties within a domestic partnership, it is in your best interests to contact a qualified legal team, such as Eagle Law Offices. With our help, you can protect your rights, property and other interest while dealing with problems in your domestic partnership.

If you have been the victim of Seattle Domestic Abuse, one of the first steps in finding help is working with a qualified attorney. Doing so gives you the best possible chance of protecting your rights and liberties as well as keeping custody of your children. Sadly, many abusers are expert manipulators, and it often takes the help of a lawyer to get past the manipulation and help the courts see where the real fault lies. Once you have sound legal help to protect your rights and safety, you can turn to counselors to help rebuild your emotional stability, but legal help needs to be your first step.

Why an Attorney Can Help?

Domestic violence cases are typically charged with much emotion. As the victim, it can be difficult for you to see past the emotion to the underlying legal and safety issues at stake. Working with a compassionate attorney gives you a voice to help you do just that. Your attorney knows the laws that surround abusive relationships and will be able to see past the emotional trauma to help you make informed legal decisions during this difficult time.

An attorney also knows the specifics of the laws surrounding abuse. Many times, victims are not aware that certain behaviors are abusive according to the law, and that these behaviors give them solid grounds for separation or divorce. They remain locked into abusive relationships because they do not think they have a way out. An attorney can help them see their options clearly.

Both Mothers and Fathers Can Be Affected

Many people consider domestic abuse to be primarily a concern affecting women, but this is not always the case. Women can be abusive just as much as men, and abused men need help just as much as abused women. If you are a man facing an abusive spouse, whether she is abusing you or your children, finding an attorney who has experience with Fathers Rights Seattle will help you protect your ability to care for and impact your children’s lives, even if you are leaving an abusive situation.

If you find yourself the victim of Seattle Domestic Abuse, whether you are male or female, we are here to ensure that you and your children are protected. Let us help you escape from this difficult situation and start your life afresh.

With busy lives, important things sometimes slip into the “I will get to it” bin. One of the things that often keep getting put off is estate planning. Maybe this is because it is not pleasant to think about our own mortality, or, perhaps your estate is not large and you feel the no urgency to put it in writing. Unfortunately, there is an urgent need to look into a Seattle Estate Attorney.

Estate planning is more than who gets what when you pass on. When planning your estate, your estate attorney will encourage you to make out an advanced medical directive and appoint someone you trust and can count on to grant a durable power of attorney to. The advanced directive has your instructions for how you want your health care decisions made in the event that you are unable to do so. The durable power of attorney only lasts for the time you are incapacitated. The moment you can make your own decisions,, the durable power of attorney is no longer in effect.

If you are a small business owner and become incapacitated due to illness or injury who will make your business decisions? You might not want this to be a family member who does not understand the business, instead, it may be a trusted employee. If so, the only way to make sure that this is what happens is to work with your estate attorney on a durable power of attorney that grants your trusted employee decision-making responsibility for your business. It too is only effective during your period of inability to make decisions, once you are again able to make decisions the durable power of attorney is no longer valid.

Now that you understand the importance of making provisions if you become ill or injured,, it is logical that you also make them if the illness or injury is fatal. Estate planning is critical to family owned small businesses. Within it you can put what you envision to be the succession plan for your business. Perhaps your children are too young to enter the business. You can retain family ownership but in your written estate plan specify who you want to run it and for how long. It might be your brother-in-law who works for you. He will be ready to retire in 12 years and your child will be old enough to have finished school and take over the business. This works well, except if your child doesn’t want to do this.

This is where estate planning is especially useful. Many small business owners set up what is known as a living trust. It is faster to implement than a will and mitigates inheritance taxes. Returning to our example, the living trust can either sell the business and keep the profits for those who receive money from the trust, or can continue to own the business and hire an outsider to manage it.

Estate planning  by a well qualified Estate Attorney Seattle makes what seem to be complicated situations, such as domestic partnerships, succession issues and other important matters, easy to manage after you are gone. It truly is urgent that you finally take care of this matter. If you have already implemented an estate plan, it is equally important that each year you review it with your estate attorney to make sure that any changes you want to make are incorporated into your estate plan.