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The information in this column is not intended as legal advice but to provide a general understanding of the law. Readers with legal problems, including those whose questions are addressed here, should consult attorneys for advice on their particular circumstances.
Q: It has become a common practice for couples who separate to enter the dating scene even though they are not yet divorced.
They often post their profiles and pictures on various dating Web sites and indicate they are separated and available.
I realize that we live in a society and times when adultery is common and widely accepted, but what are the legal ramifications of this kind of adultery?
Isn't a married couple supposed to behave prudently until the divorce is final?
Can the non-adulterous spouse gain an advantage in the family court by proving adultery after separation?
A: The kind of behavior you described is not illegal under the law.
It may be morally wrong, and it may violate the oath the couple took when they were married, but it's not a crime.
When the couple gets divorced, the fact that one of them may have started dating or registered with an Internet site after they separated will not affect the division of their property. Nor will it affect how custody or child support is awarded, either.
It is possible that one spouse's behavior could become so outrageous that it would affect the divorce proceedings.
However, the scenario you described will not give the other spouse an advantage in court.
Even so, most family lawyers advise their clients not to engage in that sort of behavior until the divorce is final.
It should be mentioned that adultery before a couple separates is a factor the judge can consider in dividing the couple's property, awarding child support and deciding custody.
Q: I had $7,000 worth of fountain work done on my house.
I hired an individual person to do the work rather than a company, and he didn't do a good job.
I have called numerous times to get him to come back. He returned once and I have not seen or heard from him since. What are my options?
A: You have no good options.
You could contact the BBB and file a complaint against this individual, or you could pay a lawyer hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars to pursue him, but in the end, you will probably end up empty-handed.
In my opinion, your best bet at this point is to forget about the individual, and instead hire a reputable company to repair the shoddy work.
Q: Would you please reprint the Texas law from 1993 dealing with what happens when a person dies without a will? In my situation, there's a surviving husband, but the children, all of whom are adults, were from the deceased mother and not the husband.
A: In your situation, the 1993 law has no effect on what happens to the deceased wife's property.
Since the deceased wife's children are not the children of the current husband, her children will inherit her half of their community property. The husband will keep his half and he will inherit one-third of her non-real estate separate property. He will also be given a life estate in one-third of her separate property real estate. The wife's children will inherit the rest of her separate property.
Community property is generally the property a husband and wife accumulated during marriage, whereas separate property is generally the property each spouse owned before marriage or property received by gift or inheritance.
The law that changed in Texas on Sept. 1, 1993, dealt with what would happen to community property if a spouse dies without a will and if all of the children are also the children of the surviving spouse.
On or after that date, the deceased spouse's half of their community property will pass to the surviving spouse. Before Sept. 1, 1993, the deceased spouse's half of their community property would have passed to the deceased spouse's children whether or not the children were all from the current marriage.
The change was made in 1993 so that spouses could inherit all of the community property when the children are all from the present marriage, rather than having half of it pass to the kids.
There are two important exceptions. The first is that even if half of a couple's home passes to the children of the deceased spouse, the surviving spouse will still have a life estate in the homestead.
The second is that life insurance, retirement benefits, annuities, certain bank and brokerage accounts and other similar kinds of property may pass directly to named beneficiaries, and not under the Texas inheritance laws. Only those properties that do not pass automatically to a beneficiary would be distributed to the surviving spouse and children as described earlier in this answer.
Of course, all of these complicated distribution rules can easily be avoided by having a will or revocable trust, or by otherwise properly planning one's estate.
By RONALD LIPMAN
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