Graham.Law Blog

NOTE – On February 16, 2021, the Colorado Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and found that an Interspousal Transfer Deed does not create separate property out of a presumptively marital asset without satisfying one of the four statutory criteria. See our new blog post for more details. Interspousal…

The Colorado Court of Appeals just held that deferred compensation payments from an employer to a non-qualified plan (i.e. it’s not a retirement account under ERISA) do not count as income for purposes of child support. N.J.C. In the N.J.C. case, the father was a cardiologist, who earned a salary of $150,000/yr, plus…

Judges Need Educating Too! No matter how smart they are, judges have to learn family law somewhere (and at the risk of looking like I’m sucking up, I continue to marvel at how judges can retain so much knowledge about so many different areas of the law). Like any other…

The Court of Appeals just confirmed what should have already been clear from the statute – only a written separation agreement is enforceable in Colorado. Colorado has adopted the Uniform Premarital and Marital Agreements Act, as more completely discussed in the Prenuptial & Postnuptial Agreements article in the Colorado Family Law Guide. And…

Colorado in Shrinking Minority of States with Common Law Marriage We do not typically write about legal developments in other states – keeping on top of family law updates in Colorado keeps us plenty busy. But when your state is one of an already tiny pool of states which recognizes…

Rent is income – that’s pretty clear. The IRS requires you to declare rental income received on a Schedule E, and the Colorado child support statute’s definition of income includes “rents”. (5)(a)(I)(J). The maintenance statute has a similar provision. (8)(a)(I)(J). And Colorado courts will impute income to people who are voluntarily under-employed and…

What is an Unpublished Case? In our legal system, judicial decisions are an essential source of law. For that reason, one critical component of a case citation is where to find the case, meaning that cases are published rather than unpublished. For a long time, that meant the volume and…

In a Colorado divorce or parenting case, the parents owe their children a duty of support. While monthly child support payments are the most visible example of this, the Colorado child support statute includes a variety of other child expenses which the parents share. Included among these shared expenses are…

In what has become an annual tradition, Colorado’s 4th Judicial District (El Paso & Teller Counties) helps the community with a fantastic information event every May, in honor of Law Day. For the third consecutive year, dozens of attorneys & other professionals in the community volunteer their time to answer…

The Post 911 GI Bill, created by the Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008, codified at 38 U.S. Code § 3301, et seq as a successor to the traditional Montgomery GI Bill, is far more generous than its predecessor. And for that reason, GI Bill and divorce issues are a concern to spouses…