Five Myths of Divorce, CS, and Custody in the USA


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meri75 is offline meri75 Post #131  November 7,2009, 3:38pm
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really wants a double dissolution in 2011!

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neardc wrote :
It sounds like you're doing great!
Thank you. It helps having for a Dad a man who is a trained Accountant and also has 30+ years in lending expertise. And my friend H, he was a Branch Manager in the Banking Industry and he's good with figures, so he helps me sort out the muddle in my mind at times! lol
 
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meri75 is offline meri75 Post #132  November 7,2009, 4:13pm
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D_Lion wrote :
And Meri is a manager.

This is more aligned with my reality.

Responding as well to your prior post, I actually don't know the rate applicable to my father's era, but we will assume it is before the late 1970's "stagflation."

Federal tax has not changed much, though property tax has insane inflation (7.1% CAGR in NJ.)

NearDC's valuation result is far off, though it doesn't really matter since I bought the least expensive house available within the time frame I had to make a purchase if I was to retain my employment. Yes, that is surely an unusual situation, but it does not really matter either.

I will accept your idea that a person without children may choose to buy more vacations, etc, but that is not germane to the issue of whether available salaries are sufficient to afford available homes - which for many Americans they are not.

I think most American's housing is income-constrained; concordantly, any income reduction leads to a housing reduction.
I looked up Property Tax and it looks like it is not the same thing for me. Do you pay it upon purchase? Or annually to your local council? If your Property Tax is what I think it is - my annual rates - yes, you are paying about $5K pa more than me. When I owned my first property, it was in rural NSW - I pay less rates now, than I did then; and yet my current home is worth more than triple what I paid for my first home.

I think it is still germane, because if the Lending Institution is reputable, they should be taking into account all of your current living expenses at the time of the application. Presuming, of course, that you require a mortgage! Financially (in theory) your position should be more advantageous than your Dad's, because you are not raising children and do not have the associated costs of raising a family.

Well - that is the same here I believe. A report released in March 2008, found that the cost of housing in Australia had increased 400% since 1986, whilst salaries increased by 120%. Is this more aligned with your premise?
 
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D_Lion is offline D_Lion Post #133  November 7,2009, 5:00pm
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Yes, it sounds like the AU data is similar to the US. So, in AU you have experienced an effective tripling on housing cost.

I think it's more here (still open is the question of whether your income measure is individuals or housholds - which had growth from increased female labor force participation - and whether it is truely salaries, or compensation, or compensation plus other income?)

"Property tax" is an annual assessment on the value of land and dwellings, generally in the range of 3.5 to 3.75% of value, for the purpose of funding much of public education (not encompassing univeristy) and county / municipal government. There is also a "transfer tax," generally 2% assessed on the sale of property.
 
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D_Lion is offline D_Lion Post #134  November 7,2009, 5:00pm
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meri75 is offline meri75 Post #135  November 7,2009, 6:39pm
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Yes.

Well, wouldn't the 'they' be pulling relative income data from tax return information? As in, for 2005, 20% of the population submitted returns within Salary Bracket X? If that's right, then wouldn't it be individual based - with a sub-grouping for marriages and de-facto income households? Similarly for those who earn income through other means, such as sales and/or dividends of shares and rental income from investment property.

Yes, your Property Tax seems to be my Annual Rates. We don't have Transfer Tax. Other taxes applicable to housing: GST which is a flat rate of 10%, Stamp Duty and Capital Gains Tax (applicable at sale).

Really, when I read back through things like this ... is it any wonder people get into mires with finances? Then throw in the deep end something like CS, and you can be really floundering. And I also wonder: why is CS only enforceable with separation and divorce? Why not in marriages or de-facto homes where one or both parents aren't being accountable for the health and well-being etc of their child(ren)?
 
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saulgoode is offline saulgoode Post #136  November 9,2009, 7:40am
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peg099 wrote :
Well I don't know any divorced men who are living in junky apartments or with their parents while paying for the house his ex is living in, so clearly, that doesn't ever happen.

See how 'useful' anecdotal data is? How about some objective facts.
I had an amicable divorce between two professionals, an engineer (me), and a CPA (her). Everything was civil.

I lived in a Budget Suites for about 6 months. Then I lived with my brother for about a year, off-and-on.

Then I lived in a one-bedroom "efficiency" apartment that smelled like the upstairs neighbor's pot and sounded like the side-by neighbor's Latino Music, Kah-Ku-Ku-Kah! It was a rathole apartment complex. I did that for a year.

I bought plates, towels, silverware, shower curtains, a full gambit of cleaning supplies, stocked an empty pantry and an empty fridge, and started hitting garage sales for hand-me-down furniture (I used plastic lawn chairs for a while, yes I did, and didn't have a kitchen table at all). Debt debt debt she didn't need to incur.

I used the apartment complex's vacuum cleaner and washer/dryer the entire time I was in that apartment.

Then I moved back in with my brother for a few months.

Then I moved into a 2-BR apartment next to a creek. That was a nice place, had a garage and an upstairs neighbor who didn't smoke pot (that I know of) or blare her musica, but her feet sounded like Frankenstein in tap shoes, stomp-stomp-stomp. I lived there for a year.

I bought a washer & dryer, and even a vacuum cleaner! Moving up, baby!

Then I bought my first (second) house! It was a HUD home fixer-upper that was almost exactly 1/2 the price of my first home. I stayed there for 2 years and took it fixed it up great! My neighbors were pot-dealing thugs, and the house next to me was an abandoned pot house that eventually got rented out, just before I moved.

I FINALLY afforded new furniture. I gave my old stuff away to a lady who agreed to clean my house for two months, in exchange for my old furniture.

Finally, after 5 years (is that right?) of moving around, I bought my second (third) house that is 2/3 the footage of my first house with fewer rooms, on a smaller lot, and it cost 10% more than my first house, but it's in a great neighborhood, I have great neighbors, I'm across the street from the park, and it's MINE MINE MINE!

I painted the inside ORANGE just because I f.king felt like it.

My ex-wife has been in the same house -- my first house -- since 1999, and recently refinanced and refurnished. She kept all the furniture at first, and even tossed out our old stuff for new stuff a couple of years ago, about the same time she bought the big-screen televisions for both the living room (for the PS3 and her Rock Band setup), and that +40" flat-panel she hung up in her bedroom.

When I moved out, I helped her with the mortgage, yes I did, so she wouldn't lose the house.

Upon finalizing the divorce, the judge was nice enough to grant me ownership of one of the loans we took out to buy her house, yes he did. I'll be paying on her house through 2015. This is on top of the C/S for our 50:50 custody arrangement.

She hasn't offered to pay for my house, yet. Weird, I know. She did offer to give me her old furniture, though.

D's spot-on with the leaver. Whoever leaves usually winds up in low-cost housing, at least in the short-term. It's a matter of simple math, really.

Financially, the divorce set me back about 10 years and has so far cost me about $150,000. By the time my son's 18, it will have cost me about $250,000 all total, and that's after-tax money deposited into the ex-wife's bank account directly.

It's not gender-specific. Whoever makes more money, whoever leaves, and whoever loses custody gets hosed. Which is why everyone says this to divorcess: DON'T LEAVE! Sell the house and split the money! Get custody!

And I make "good" money with 50:50 custody in an amicable divorce between two professionals who make more or less the same money.

It could be worse, see. I'm, like, best-case scenario.


- Saul
 
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peg099 is offline peg099 Post #137  November 9,2009, 4:35pm
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Saul, I think you missed the sarcasm in my previous post. My point was simply that basing all your conclusions on anecdotal data wasn't particularly valid or useful.

You are right about whoever leaves tends to live in worse housing, at least for a while. The same happened to my sister when she left her ex, who had a pattern of cheating along with controlling and manipulative behavior. He could never hold a job for any length of time, and she has a PhD, so she was always the primary wage earner, and he wound up providing the lion's share of child care, especially when the kids pre-school aged.

When she'd finally had enough, she didn't want to disrupt the lives of her kids any more than absolutely necessary. She offered to give her ex the house, pay child support AND pay him alimony. She got a very small apartment in the neighborhood they had lived in so she could be close to the kids. She started out wanting shared custody.

Alimony, child support, and the house weren't enough for this (university-educated) guy. So he dragged the divorce on for a number of years, increasing his demands. Every time his lawyer would tell him he was being unreasonable and suggest some sort of settlement, he'd fire that lawyer and get a new one. In the end, the cost of the divorce pretty much ate up the equity they had in the house. It became apparent to everyone who had contact with their kids (teachers, psychologists, etc) that the kids did far worse when they spent time with him, and were more stable when they were with my sister. My sister was granted primary custody, and he had some visitation. Then he screwed that up by refusing to return them after a vacation - he'd also convinced the older one that he would kill himself if she didn't come live with him. The court didn't take too kindly to that.

You're right. It's not gender specific. There are horror stories on both sides.

There are also huge numbers of divorces that proceed in a fairly civilized manner, where both parties are able to put the welfare of the kids ahead of their own. I wouldn't use my sister's experience to make any types of generalizations about men, as that would be unfair to the majority.
 
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saulgoode is offline saulgoode Post #138  November 9,2009, 5:13pm
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I saw your sarcasm, Peg, and I think I know you well enough to say that you're kind-hearted, so I never thought for a moment you had anything but good intent.

My point, if there was one, is that sometimes the anecdote is sometimes all we have.

I'm a statistician in a large part of my job. Ironically, I don't trust statistics AT ALL.

Me, I trust my gut.

- Saul
 
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peg099 is offline peg099 Post #139  November 9,2009, 7:18pm
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saulgoode wrote :
My point, if there was one, is that sometimes the anecdote is sometimes all we have.
Agreed. But it's important to remain open to the fact that there's a bigger picture too, and to be willing to hear other sides of an issue.

Neither anecdotes, nor 'statistics', give us a complete picture of an issue on their own.

I appreciated you starting this thread.
 
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