Articles in the Family Law category - Page 3 of 14

N.C. Gen. Stat. 50-13.4 requires the North Carolina Conference of Chief District Court Judges to prescribe uniform statewide presumptive guidelines for determining the child support obligations of parents, and to […]

Marital debt is debt incurred during the marriage by either or both spouses for the joint benefit of the parties. Huguelet v. Huguelet, 113 N.C. App. 533 (1994). The party […]

Consider the situation where a grandparent or other nonparent files a custody action against a parent. The complaint includes allegations regarding the relationship between the nonparent and the child and […]

Suppose mother files an action for custody when North Carolina is the home state of the child and mother and father both reside in North Carolina. Temporary orders are entered […]

In Walter v. Walter, decided by the NC Court of Appeals on August 17, 2021, the court vacated an award of attorney fees in a contempt proceeding arising out of […]

In Crago v. Crago, 268 NC App 154 (2019), the court of appeal rejected a request to apply the analytic approach to classify life insurance proceeds received by wife before […]

G.S. 50-13.7(a) provides that “… an order … for the custody of a minor child may be modified or vacated at any time, upon motion in the cause and a […]

Recently, in Kincheloe v. Kincheloe, _ N.C. App. _ (June 15, 2021), the North Carolina Court of Appeals engaged in a lengthy discussion of the law relating to the entry of orders that deviate from the Child Support Guidelines, giving me an excuse to post this short review of that law. To summarize at the beginning of my post rather than at the end, there are two key points to keep in mind when entering child support orders. First, any provision in an order that contradicts or is different than the specific terms or instructions in the Guidelines constitutes a deviation, and second, any deviation must be supported with detailed findings of fact regarding the reasonable needs of the children and the relative ability of the parents to pay support.   

The North Carolina Court of Appeals recently affirmed the trial court order in Madar v. Madar, (Dec. 31, 2020), that required both parents to pay costs associated with their child’s […]

In an opinion issued on March 16, 2021, the North Carolina Court of Appeals held that a trial court’s award of visitation to paternal grandparents pursuant to North Carolina’s grandparent […]