Total Divorce Blog

While certainly not the no-fault law that many people have been calling for, the New York State Assembly approved legislation on Wednesday that would shorten the divorce waiting period for people with formal separation agreements from one year to three months. Current New York divorce law is quite complicated and requires one party to blame the other using one of several “fault” grounds. If this does not happen, the couple must agree to a separation agreement and live apart for at least one year. On the other hand, a no-fault divorce law would allow a spouse to divorce by citing “irreconcilable differences” and essentially not require him or her to pit blame on the other party. Some people have called New York divorce laws out of date, and proponents of a no-fault law were not too thrilled with shortening the waiting period.

One no-fault proponent described his fears in a Newsday story that this recently approved legislation would hurt the political movement for a New York no-fault divorce law. On the other hand, Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein of Brooklyn sponsored this bill shortening the divorce waiting period and described it as a start in the right direction. This legislation would also required judges to consider a spouse’s loss of health insurance when determining property division and alimony. A similar bill is in the State Senate, and we’ll keep you updated with any more developments concerning this proposed divorce law in New York.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 8th, 2007 at 8:49 am and is filed under Divorce Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.