When one of the litigants fails to appear or to respond to a motion, a court can enter a default judgment, and give the other party what he/she wants without making specific findings. Except in parenting cases, and especially except for a parent wanting a relocation with children after divorce…
Normally when child support is modified in Colorado, retroactive child support may be awarded back to the date one of the parents filed a motion to modify child support in Colorado. (1). However, the modification statute provides for up to 5 years of retroactive child support back to the date…
Once a family law judge determines parenting time, it is not easy to change the majority residential parent. A permanent custody change requires either the other parent’s agreement, consent to the child being integrated into the parent’s home, or endangerment. It is this middle factor which was at issue in…
Impute Income to Voluntarily Unemployed Spouse In most maintenance or child support cases, both spouses are working, or one has a legitimate reason to not be working, so the incomes for purposes of calculating family support are readily ascertainable. But in cases of “voluntary unemployment”, that is not necessarily the…
It seems the issue of what counts as a financial resource in a contempt or maintenance case still results in seemingly contradictory decisions from the courts. We recently wrote a post discussing the Sheehan case, where the Colorado Court of Appeals held that a trial judge could not find a…
Although less common than it once was, with long-term marriages courts may still order maintenance for an indefinite period of time – i.e. with no expiration date. While such awards may colloquially be known as “lifetime” maintenance, that’s not strictly speaking accurate, because either former spouse could still file a…
When a judge awards maintenance as part of a final orders in a dissolution of marriage case, the maintenance is subject to modification “upon a showing of changed circumstances so substantial and continuing as to make the terms unfair” (1)(a). However, when the spouses reach an agreement for maintenance, they…
We have written about cases where Colorado’s appellate courts have reversed alimony awards from trial courts which simply applied the maintenance guidelines without evidence or specific findings on the need for maintenance. Now, the Colorado Court of Appeals has held, in a case of first impression, that courts are permitted…
Court Cannot Issue Post-Decree Order to Modify Property Settlement After a divorce, can the court later issue an order for a spouse to refinance the mortgage on a residence awarded to her? Some orders can be modified after a divorce – we have a whole section of the Colorado Family…
Modification of Custody If In Child’s Best Interests With parenting, nothing is written in stone. In Colorado, a court can order child custody modifications (changes in parenting time or decision-making) when it is in the child’s best interests (although a change in primary residential parent requires a higher standard than…
“I was impressed by Graham Law in general but most impressed with Brian Boney. Brian is an excellent family law attorney. Attentive, detail-oriented, and hard-working, Brian surpassed my expectations for representation. He was easy to work with and gave excellent advice on how to navigate a complicated process. Highly recommended.”
Robert Weeks
05/26/2019
“Where do I begin? Well AFTER have a consultation with another attorney (who made me feel as though I was undeserving of his expertise) I was extremely apprehensive when coming to Graham Law. This was immediately squashed when Carl shook my hand. Carl is the most professional , just basically awesome person that I have met in quite a long time . He broke my situation down in a way that I could easily understand it . TOP NOTCH PEOPLE!! I would recommend Graham Law to ANYONE!”