Navigating Child Custody During the Holiday Season

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With the holiday season upon us, this time is not always joyful for separated parents that share custody over their children. It can be one of the most difficult times of the year. Balancing your desires to share the holiday with your child, the other parent’s desires and the desires of your children can quickly turn a joyous season into a headache. Below are some tips on how to successfully navigate the holidays for a peaceful and happy celebration.

  1. Remind yourself that it’s about your children. It’s ok to have your own desires, but remember that as a parent your child’s happiness comes first. In California, the Court’s overriding principal in making child custody orders is what is in the “best interest of the child”. You should have this principal to guide your decisions as well.
  2. Respect your child’s relationship with the other parent. The California legislature has chosen to codify the belief that in most cases it is in the best interests of the child for them to have full and frequent contact with the other parent. Sharing the holidays isn’t about respecting the parent but instead it’s about respecting your child’s need for a relationship with the other parent. Try and be flexible with the other parent’s schedule and encourage your children to participate.
  3. Establish a holiday schedule early. The best way to avoid holiday custody disputes is to establish a holiday custody schedule early on. Come to an agreement with the other parent over how to share the holidays with your children and have an attorney help you make it a court order. Having a preset holiday visitation order can help set expectations early and allow everyone involved to plan ahead.
  4. Make new traditions. Most everyone has holiday traditions that they grew up with as a child. Unless your traditions involved sharing the holidays between two different parents you are most likely going to make some new ones. Maybe this means that every year you have your Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve and the other parent celebrates with your child on Christmas Day. Traditions are what you choose to make and may need to be modified in order to accommodate the other parent.
  5. Be Flexible. Having a custody order helps provide stability for your child, but there will come times when either you or the other parent will want to modify the arrangement to accommodate something special. Making a modification request early and your flexibility in responding to the other parent’s requests is key in avoiding the Courts. If you are faced with an intractable parent who won’t accommodate your reasonable request, being able to point to a time when you did accommodate may go a long way toward getting a judge to side with you.

Hope these tips bring divorced and/or separated parents piece of mind accommodating to one another’s schedule this holiday season.

- James Steinle, Family Law Attorney

Preparing to Buy a New Home in the New Year with your Significant Other?

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Couples first homeIf you’re considering buying a place with your boyfriend, girlfriend or significant other, you can take advantage of the great real estate deals that are currently out there. Whether it be a short sale or foreclosed property, you both may fall in love with a great house, but as sometimes happens, fall out of love with your partner. We can get caught up with the joy and spirit of the Christmas holiday season and many couples don’t think ahead of this unfortunate outcome. Many are forced to sort out what they’re going to do with their house down the line. If you’re married, there are plenty of California laws out there that will help protect you. If you’re not, you won’t be so lucky.

In the event you’re ready to take the plunge, consider an agreement to document who is responsible for what and what you’ll do with the house if you part ways. Important things to consider are who will pay for things like the mortgage, property taxes, insurance and maintenance? More importantly, you should consider how you can realistically afford to sell or maintain the property in the event you do split up. Allowing for concrete time frames to secure new financing and allocating responsibility for who will take care of the payments when the house is still in both your names are the big issues.

If you’re looking planning to make a big purchase like this with that special someone over the Christmas holiday season or the upcoming new year, consider drafting an agreement to protect yourselves now and down the line.

-Elena Rivkin Franz, Civil Litigation Attorney

(408) 919-0088

5 Easy Christmas Holiday Money Saving Tips

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This holiday season do yourself a favor and focus on what matters most.  Time with family far away from the crowds at Costco are what I enjoy.  Sure you can buy your Christmas cookies but why not spend time with the kids baking them instead!

Tip #1: Cook for yourself- Eating out is expensive and with the average price of eating at a restaurant at $55, you can feast at home and have leftovers the next day.

Tip #2: Shop the thrift and consignment stores- When our daughter recently turned four, we bought her birthday gifts from the dollar store.  She was happy as could be and told us that it was her best birthday ever! There are great deals at Goodwill and if you haven’t been in one lately you should check it out.  Many merchandise are lightlyused and as good as new.

Tip #3: Make your gifts- Some of the best holiday cards we get are from our friends who have taken the time to make a card for us.  And if you think art supplies are expensive,
take a look at some of the packaging and things you already have and find a creative way to use them in your project.  I like to think of this as taking the middleman out of recycling.

Tip #4: Watch movies at home- We must have 200 movies at home and have watched most of them only once. Except for the animated kids movies, of course, which we watch over and over again!  I like to pull out one of my favorite “adult film”, Jerry McGuire and pretend I’m seeing it again for the first time.  What does it mean when Bob Sugar says “It’s not “show friends.” It’s show *business*”?  And it gets me every time
when the late great Dicky Fox points to his heart and says “If this is empty”
then bonks his head on the palm of his hand saying “this doesn’t matter”.

Tip #5: Enjoy Saving Money- Instead of rushing out to spend your hard earned cash this Christmas put the money away.  The thrill of purchasing something fizzles fast but the security of money in the bank lasts.  When you really need something you won’t need to worry about how to afford whatever it might be.

As a young parent I often feel caught up in working longer and harder so that I can provide my family with more things, a bigger house ora better education.  But the truth is, happiness isn’t for sale and real learning takes hard work and not high tuition.

So, WAKE UP this Holiday and see things for what they are.  Don’t let life pass you by chasing a bigger home, nicer car or faster toys.  What you need is right before you and it is FREE!

Merry Christmas Everybody!

- The Mlnarik Law Group staff

Significance of Thanksgiving During Trying Times

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Giving thanks is more difficult than it has been in years for so many Americans.  As banks foreclose the economic crisis hits home and has become about more than money.  Families overextended themselves when professionals told them they would fall behind if they didn’t BUY NOW.  Students, young and old took out mountains of loans when shown statistics of graduates obtaining high paying jobs upon graduation.   Insight into the phrase “Buyer beware” is at an all-time high as consumer confidence hits record lows.

This Thanksgiving, imagine the executive salesmen of the country far off in their ivory tower while those of us who labor focus on the fundamentals and give thanks for the basic necessities we have that others do not.

We are thankful for our families who love us, for the food we have to nourish us and for our communities that support us.  Law firms in your community can help you learn about your rights as a consumer, form a business to provide you work when jobs are scarce and identify protections in the law that you were unaware of.

Join us as we post articles here to answer many of the questions we receive every day.  Please comment at your leisure and suggest topics of interest.  If you have a specific question, call and set up at time to come in and talk about your problem.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for family, friends, food, football but also the opportunity to give back to my community by advocating for them at a time when the sound of their voice may be the most important thing they have left.

- John Mlnarik, Founder/Principal Bankruptcy Attorney

Welcome to TMLG!

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Santa Clara Attorney

John Mlnarik at his post in the office

Welcome and thank you for pointing your browser in our direction. On our website in our videos and through this blog we hope to demystify practice areas and topics all too familiar to us.

Unlike the posted speed limit the law is not open and obvious to you. But it affects your daily life all the same.

Follow us as we begin a journey that will provide general information and is sure to be educational, informative and perhaps even interesting. I look forward to your insights, questions and what I hope will begin a discussion on topics that will help you move out of your problems of today and on to the success of tomorrow!