Will County Divorce Lawyers - Andreano and Lyons - Attorneys

I have blogged in the past (click here) about the new Will County Courthouse plans. Well the county has broken ground and crews will soon start to demolish the old First Midwest Bank Building to prepare the site. It is located on the city block between the old courthouse and City Hall. From my office on Chicago Street, I will have a front row seat to the construction and plan to bring regular updates This will be the county's latest building project in recent history - a nearly $200 million 10 story building, 365,000 square-feet with 38 courtrooms (we now only have 23). T he plan envisions a two-story glass lobby, 6 six security screening stations (we now have only 2) with areas to line up. The current courthouse was never designed for modern security so there are often long wait lines stretching out to Jefferson street some mornings. They will also have escalators on the first several floors to move people to their courtrooms much faster that the 4 elevators that serve the curr...

So under the new tax plan approved by Congress (awaiting presidential approval) alimony will NOT be tax deductible. A strange result given that our president is on his third wife and reportedly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in alimony to his former wives. What does the new tax bill do? Compare the current law and the tax law as approved by the House and Senate. CURRENT LAW : Alimony and separate maintenance payments are deductible by the payor spouse and includible in income by the recipient spouse. Child support payments are not treated as alimony and is tax neutral. PROPOSED LAW: (about to get signed) Alimony and separate maintenance payments are NOT deductible by the payor spouse and repeals the Tax Code provisions that specify that alimony and separate maintenance payments are included in income. The treatment of child support is not changed. WHEN IS THIS EFFECTIVE? When signed by the president. this change becomes effective for any divorce or separation agreemen...

House Bill 4113 / HB-4113  STATUS 1/20/18: Looks like the bill has been placed into the hands of the Rules Committee. There have about 19-20 co-sponsors to the bill and there was a hearing on the bill in mid-January 2018. There is a major change being proposed to address the battle of "traditional" custody (alternating weekends parenting time) vs. a presumption of equal parenting time - all with such a slight re-arrangement of words. Right now there really is no presumption one way or another although many believe that no presumption for equal parenting time is a presumption against it. I don’t really follow that line of thinking but I agree there is a problem to be addressed – just not this way (using a presumption). With 20 years of practicing family law and seeing presumptions come and go, I think a presumption in any direction is instituting a hurdle that shouldn't be there. A presumption in any form puts its fingers on the scale - many times at the expense of...

Illinois had a major change in the method of setting spousal maintenance (alimony) in 2015. At that time, maintenance was changed from the court giving factors to set an amount and duration to a system that kept the factors but added specific mathematical calculations to set both the amount and length of a maintenance award based on income and length of marriage. Now those guidelines will be slightly modified in 2018 forward. Section  750 ILCS 5/504 of the divorce  statute dealing with maintenance raises the ceiling for cases where the guidelines are to be applied. Before, guidelines did not apply if the parties combined income was under $250,000 - now that ceiling is $500,000. So if you and your spouse's combined gross incomes fall under $500,000, the statute may apply.  Also, under the old guidelines expiring in 2018, the duration (or length) of maintenance would jump at each 5 year anniversary of being married. Now the calculation of the length of maintenance is ...

On July 1, 2017 Illinois laws on child support will drastically change. Depending on your income, the other parent's income, child care costs health insurance costs and the amount of parenting time, there could be a major change in the support you pay or receive. ​The basic change is that Illinois will now use what is called an "income shares" model for setting child support. This is a major change from the percentage model that based child support only on the net income of the parent paying support that essentially ignored the income of the parent receiving support. One of the goals of this change is to address situations where the person receiving support had much higher income that the person paying support. Those situations could mean the person paying support could barely survive on a relatively lower income AND with an obligation to pay percentage support. ​Thus the income shares model factors in BOTH parties income and is meant to address the needs of both t...

The 2017 Order has been issued reassigning Will County Judges. For the Family Courts, there is only one judge reassignment. Judge Victoria Kennsion (Room 306) will be replaced by Judge Zalazo ORDERS OF PROTECTION: Associate Judge Jessica Colon-Sayre (Courtroom 300) and Associate Judge Elizabeth Hoskins Dow (Courtroom 301).