From Chaos to Clarity: Fixing a DIY Divorce Gone Wrong

In this episode of Modern Family Matters, Steve Altishin and Founding Attorney Lewis Landerholm discuss the common pitfalls of DIY divorces in Oregon and what can be done when things go wrong. 

They explore how seemingly simple divorces can become complicated when parties don't understand legal requirements, procedural deadlines, and the long-term implications of their agreements. The conversation covers topics including property division, spousal and child support, parenting plans, and the limited options available for modifying judgments after they're finalized. 

Lewis emphasizes that investing in legal advice upfront can save thousands of dollars in litigation costs later and prevent irreversible mistakes that impact people's lives for years to come.

As a leading divorce firm in Portland, our attorneys provide guidance on custody, alimony, separation, estate planning, and more. Learn what to expect in Oregon and Washington divorce cases and how we can help.

If you would like to speak with one of our attorneys, please call our office at (503) 227-0200, or visit our website at https://www.pacificcascadelegal.com.

Disclaimer: Nothing in this communication is intended to provide legal advice nor does it constitute a client-attorney relationship, therefore you should not interpret the contents as such.

Transcript

Speaker 1  00:00:01

Welcome to Modern Family Matters, a podcast devoted to exploring family law topics that matter most to you, covering a wide range of legal, personal, and family law matters. With expert analysis from skilled attorneys and professional guests, we hope that our podcast provides answers, clarity, and guidance towards a better tomorrow for you and your family. Here's your host, Steve Altishin.

Speaker 2  00:00:32

Hi everyone. I'm Steve Altishin, director of Client Partnerships of Pacific Cascade Legal. I'm here with our founding attorney, Lewis Landerholm to talk about what you can do if your DIY divorce in Oregon went wrong. Lewis, how you doing today?

Speaker 3  00:00:49

Yeah, I'm doing great. How are you, Steve?

Speaker 2  00:00:51

I'm doing well. I'm really, really excited about this. We see these all the time. People want to do their own divorce and if something goes wrong, you know, they just sort of don't know what the hell's going on, what to do. So before we get into that, let's talk a little bit about how easy it is for someone to get into this situation.

Speaker 3  00:01:13

Yeah. Well, it's very easy. I think the, the difficulty with any legal proceeding, but I think specifically divorce people in general feel like, oh, you know, maybe it's just a divorce. It's not that big of a deal. We wanna save some costs. We, we can generally agree on, you know, we think we're in agreement on, on what we wanna do, how difficult can it be, right? Yeah. Um, you know, we're just, you know, we can divide our stuff. It's just putting, putting things on paper and, and, you know, we'll, we'll either we'll figure that stuff out later and, you know, we, we get along, it'll be fine. Right? And so that's, I think where everybody starts with, you know, they have the best intentions in the world that this is gonna go the way that they wanna go. The, the problem arises when, because 99.9% of the time, the people and the clients who are doing this, they don't do this for a living.

Speaker 3  00:02:15

They don't live in this world all the time and just frankly, don't know what they don't know. They don't know how this stuff works, right. And so when you put information and you put orders into a judgment, that is the final document in a divorce that then is signed by the judge, that is the letter of the law. When it re, when it relates to how the you and your ex-spouse are going to operate once you're divorced, if it's not clear, if there were side agreements that nobody knows about, if they're not in the document, they don't exist as far as a judge later on is concerned, you don't get to come into court and say, yes, but your Honor, we had agreed to do this. I know it doesn't say it in the documents because the judge is going to say, I don't see it in the documents.

Speaker 3  00:03:09

I can't do anything about that. The word is the word right? In the, in those documents. So that's what typically happens. The difficulty is, is that it's not always the terms where things fall apart. A lot of times it's the mechanics of the how things are gonna get done that fall apart. People may say, for example, houses are one of the biggest places that cause the most amount of problems because people say, oh yeah, we're gonna split the equity, but we're not going to sell the house for a couple years. Okay, that's all well and good and that can be done. And we do that all the time. The problem is we don't, they don't know how to plan for the inevitable problems that are going to exist. Like, who's gonna pay for repairs? Who gets to pick the realtor? When we do go to sell, when do we get to sell?

Speaker 3  00:04:05

What triggers when we can sell? Who's gonna continue paying the mortgage? And is that person then get a larger share of the equity? Like these are all the places where there's going to be fights and there's gonna be disagreements. And that's where the intention of, oh, we'll figure this out down the road. We get along as soon as the fight ensues later, you're not getting along and nobody can figure out how they're gonna do it. Then we have to go back to a judge and now you're spending thousands of dollars. It, it may cost a 10th of the money to get some information and some advice up front as it will take to go and actually litigate the issue later.

Speaker 2  00:04:46

I see a lot of, of times when people say, well, we, we forgot about this asset. You know, we just, we forgot we had that account and we didn't, you know, we didn't say anything about it. It, it seems like one of the things that you guys do so well is make sure all the assets, the debts, the the costs are accounted for so you can start to make the divorce work.

Speaker 3  00:05:17

Yeah, well, at least we try. Most of the time we get the, the full list of assets that matter. I mean, it's still possible, I guess in a, in an uncontested agreed upon divorce that parties don't tell us everything either. But for the most part, we find out and get that into the document. We also explain to them that, you know, you don't wanna deal with a, an asset that wasn't included, A retirement account that, you know, we just agreed was going to be split in 10 years. That doesn't hit the documents, you know, if it's not in the document, it's not getting split in 10 years. These are the things that we talk through just so that everybody understands the rules of engagement and how, how the process really works so that we deal with the, the big ticket items for the most part,

Speaker 2  00:06:03

In addition to just the stuff and the kind of the, the legal stuff. There's also, in a divorce, a lot of procedural issues and deadlines and things you have to file and things you have to do in order to get this thing done. And it seems like missing some of those is pretty easy if you don't even know what they are.

Speaker 3  00:06:28

Yeah, yeah. It happens a lot. So the, the way that it works is, you know, parties are putting together their documents, filling 'em out. They're trying to do the best they can. They're looking at the internet, they're talking to friends, they're going to even the, the resource center at the courts trying to understand what they need to do. But once those documents get submitted, the, the court clerks are gonna look at them and there are, there are procedural check marks that have to get dealt with in the documents themselves. If their documents are deficient and, and don't meet those, you know, statutory requirements, then they're gonna get kicked back. And I've seen times where people thought they were divorced, didn't realize that their documents got kicked back, and they end up, they're still married for years down the line and then you have chaos ensues when they've gotten remarried and that marriage is void by operation of law.

Speaker 3  00:07:22

And I've seen this happen on multiple occasions over the years. There's real issues with just not knowing and, and not, uh, you know, just managing the process. And so, yes, there's definitely procedural issues with just getting the documents through the courthouse so that you can actually get divorced the way that, you know, you want to get divorced. There's, you know, service issues, there's timing for responses or default or like, all of these things have very mechanical timing and, you know, the court is not forgiving if people don't do it the right way. Um, the, you know, the court's position is, well, you have to figure that out. That's, that's on you to, you know, to figure that piece out. We can't give you legal advice. Uh, and so it can cause a real problem for people who, who actually, you know, want to get divorced but can't get through the, the process itself.

Speaker 2  00:08:18

That sounds like a pretty big bad result, you know, the, the whole point of, you know, filing for divorces to, you know, get divorced <laugh>, and if, and if you don't, I mean that's, that's, that's a pretty good reason for, you know, not trying to do it yourself sometimes, but there's a lot of other potentially bad results that could arise, can't they? And you know, my first thought is just especially around, you know, dividing property.

Speaker 3  00:08:48

Yeah. Especially in Oregon, what, you know, what people don't necessarily realize is that, um, in our divorces property, uh, division is non-modifiable. So you can't go back and say, oh, I wanna change what we did in this divorce judgment. Once it's agreed upon and the judge signs off on it, that's the answer. That's who's getting that piece of property. That's how much you're getting from a piece of property. And so here, situations and, and examples from people all the time when they were like, I just wanted to get out because I needed to move on, which is totally understandable, but you make the mistake of these are lifelong impacts to the next 10, 20 years of your life. If you could have asked for spousal support and you didn't

get spousal support, or you could have gotten child support and you didn't ask for it, or you could have gotten half of the equity of the home and you wanted to be the nice person and you didn't get the, take the equity from the home.

Speaker 3  00:09:56

And there, and there may be reasons to do all of those things, but I think not having full advice on how the stuff works or maybe there's a way to trade, trade things around or, or still preserve some of the equity, like that's the part that is, is so important is the, uh, the understanding of the knowledge that at least if you know what you're doing and know why you're doing it, you can, you don't have this feeling of like, oh, I gave up something that I shouldn't have. And that's what we advise during this process is we help to give people the information and give our clients the knowledge base so that if they wanna give something up, then they at least know why they're giving it up. And maybe there's a way to trade something else or a way to do it more creatively. They just don't know that because they handle divorces every day. So that's definitely a situation that comes up all the time.

Speaker 2  00:10:53

And, you know, a DIY divorce, to me at least, is something that, you know, is sort of thought about or invented for two people who are, are amiable kind of together. They, they, they don't believe that they have, you know, anything different, uh, that they're thinking that the other person is thinking. But a DYI can go even horribly wrong. It would seem to me if one of these people is really a bad actor and is using A-D-O-I-I-Y divorce to hide stuff to bully the other person, and one person is just thinking, okay, you're, you're working in my best interest. Seems like that, that that could happen a lot.

Speaker 3  00:11:43

Yeah. And it does. I mean, we see a lot of people unfortunately after the fact that, you know, the answer is, sorry, we can't do anything now. Right? It's been agreed upon, um, it's entered with the court, uh, there, there just aren't a lot of options. You know, there, there are some options. And so that's where it's worth reaching out to an attorney who does family law because especially in the first year after a judgment is entered, there are some ways to potentially say, oh, judge, you know, essentially I messed up. I didn't understand what I was doing, you know, I, I need to do something different. Um, it's not modifying, it's potentially setting aside the judgment, it is not easy, it's not an easy proceeding by any means, and it's much more expensive than getting advice at the beginning to just know what you're doing.

Speaker 3  00:12:39

But there are some instances where it's possible to undo what was ordered. And so you always want to ask the question outside of a year. Then the bad actor part of things becomes the really the only way to, to deal with the judgment if there was direct fraud. The inherent difficulty in a DIY situation is how do you prove the fraud because it's, you're working together and the other person can say, well, I, I said I had that, or I didn't have that, and they just wanted the divorce. So these are just, they're difficult issues. It'll cost somebody, again, 10 times the amount to litigate it later on as it would be to deal with it at the beginning of the process. Um, but those are, you know, the, it's definitely important to get that information and advice.

Speaker 2  00:13:29

You talked a little there about modifying you can kind of help someone, even if you can't reverse the situation necessarily by modifying some of these things if it's available and if it's appropriate.

Speaker 3  00:13:45

Yeah, the main things that we can modify, um, are parenting plans. Uh, we can modify support both child support, spousal support is more difficult to modify, um, but it can potentially be modified. The spousal support modification is a much more complex, uh, analysis. And so, you know, you definitely have to get, uh, an attorney involved for the spousal mods, but on the child support, the parenting plan custody can also be modified. If you have joint custody, it can be modified for either party to get sole. It is very difficult in Oregon to modify sole custody from one parent to the other. So that, that is difficult. But those are the main things that get modified on a regular basis

Speaker 2  00:14:30

If you're going to modify and they, they, they say, okay, I wanna do this. You know, are there any other requirements that you're gonna ha that they're gonna have to meet so that you can modify a decree? I mean, is there, can you just say, I, I was

dumb, it never worked from the start? Or do you have to show change of circumstances or what sort of requirements do they need to meet to even modify?

Speaker 3  00:15:00

Yeah, it depends on what we're modifying standards for. Modifying, like a parenting plan is just a change of circumstances and best interest of the children. A very low bar from a, uh, standpoint of, uh, being able to say, yeah, something's changed. I need to change you, you know, we need to do something different. It's not working for the kids. Right. That's, that's a, you know, pretty low standard. The standard for child support, you know, is just to change the circumstances. Also, typically, you're talking about a percentage change in incomes of the parties and what the support and, you know, if childcare is dropping off, that's, those are reasons that modifications on the child support side, uh, happen regularly. And spousal support, you have to prove an unanticipated change of economic circumstances of the parties, typically the one who is ordered to pay. So it's a, it's a much more difficult case to deal with because you have to prove that it was unanticipated and that it's substantial.

Speaker 3  00:15:59

And so those are the factors that a judge is looking at. And, you know, again, the judgment is the most important thing. And the problem with DIY divorces when there is some spousal support is generally it's silent to all the other factors that we look for in a, in a spousal support modification. And so if it's, it causes a lot of problems and a lot of issues to try to modify spousal support if we don't have all of the facts that led to a spousal support, um, awarded at the, in the very beginning. So whether an award is way too high or way too low, um, we don't have the things that judges look for to be able to modify later. So it can really cause a lot of problems and be, you know, be a situation where the answer is, sorry, we just can't, you know, we don't have the requisite information to be able to modify.

Speaker 3  00:16:56

Right. So really there's different standards per thing that you wanna modify. Like if somebody has sole custody, um, trying to modify sole custody to the other parent, it's a much greater barrier because there's a legal barrier that basically says that sole legal custodian is acting in the best interest of the children. And so you, you have to prove first that there essentially a bad parent before you could even get to what's best for the kids. And so it's a very, it's a, it's a high bar to get over to be able to modify, uh, custody itself.

Speaker 2  00:17:29

Well, let's say maybe they're not bad actors, they just did things wrong. Do you have to go to court in terms of getting a, a trial or can you kind of sit down with the person, figure out what, what, you know, you could maybe fix and then try to negotiate it, mediate it? I mean, are there some other options they can have rather than just having to redo the whole thing?

Speaker 3  00:17:57

Oh, sure. Yeah. And we do that often, um, when it's, when, when the parties can agree. And the, the most difficult part is when the other side who then isn't necessarily happy with what happened in the judgment goes to the other person who they find out is happy with what happened in the judgment. It becomes, there's a difficulty from a, from a negotiating power in that situation where the other party can just say no. And there's not a whole lot that, you know, the, the party who wants to change it can do. So a lot of times they do end up in front of a judge, but it is possible to negotiate certain items. They can be ba upon stipulation, they can be modified at times. Again, it really just depends on what's going on. And a lot of times, like I said earlier, the property division can't be modified, but the mechanics of how things get done can potentially be modified. So we can't always change how much money people are getting, but we can change like how a house is going to get sold or when, or those type of things if, if the judgment is silent to all of that information. So it gets really complicated. It's just a matter of really looking at what is in the document, what was anticipated at the time that it was signed by the judge, and then really analyzing what legally can be done from a modification standpoint.

Speaker 2  00:19:22

We're almost outta time, but I wanna ask one more thing. If someone, or have you ever had an issue, a time where someone in a DIY divorce had come to you before the final disillusioned judgment and said, here's what we've decided on. Can you take a look at it? Does that kinda stuff happen and or, and should it happen?

Speaker 3  00:19:43

Yeah, we do that all the time. That's a service that we offer to people all the time. They can, you know, pay for a, a limited amount of time and advice to review documents before they get submitted to the court. It's more, rather than the, the specific language, it's more about the overall division of things to be able to talk through, okay, what are you trying to do? It's not, we're not writing it. I mean, we can't, we can get hired to write it for them, but it's more of a situation where we're talking through like, okay, if you wanna do this, how are you gonna do this? And how do you wanna, you know, how do you wanna handle this particular aspect of it? You know, the other thing we didn't really talk about is, you know, in A-D-Y-D-I-Y divorce, people are trying to put together parenting plans for kids who, you know, that they don't do this all the time.

Speaker 3  00:20:33

And so a lot of times don't know to think about like, okay, how do we deal with summers, especially with young kids who aren't in school yet? How are we gonna deal with the school calendar? How are we gonna deal with holidays, spring break? You know, you know, what happens if one parent, you know, wants to go on vacation? How do we deal with that? So that's another big part of putting together judgements for people that we work really, you know, hard on to try to get a parenting plan to last as long as possible. And, you know, we know where all of the pitfalls are and so we try to help parties plan for that in advance so that they have the answer ahead of time and so that people aren't having to then fight over it and having to file a modification that's gonna cost money, take six to eight months, 10 months to get in front of a judge to even change it as it is. And it just creates even more chaos than trying to think through some of the normal things that come up

Speaker 2  00:21:30

Well. So even if they are gonna do, do a DII coming to you before they sign, it's pretty good idea.

Speaker 3  00:21:37

I would highly recommend it. That's where the little bit upfront and yes, I get it costs money, but the little bit upfront saves thousands later. Yeah, I've seen, I've seen it so many times over the years, can really, in a short amount of time, help somebody understand the pros and cons. Is there a better way before signing off on something that's just gonna cause a bunch of time and money later to fix?

Speaker 2  00:22:03

Yep. Well, Louis, thank you again for sitting down to join us and talk about, you know, what you can do if your DIY divorce went wrong.

Speaker 3 00:22:13 Yeah, you're welcome.

Speaker 2  00:22:14

Thanks. It is just a great, great topic and everyone else thank you for joining us. Anyone further questions, feel free to contact our firm. We can get you connected with an attorney who can help you. So until next time, stay safe, stay happy, and be well.

Speaker 1  00:22:31

This has been Modern Family Matters, a legal podcast focusing on providing real answers and direction for individuals and families. Our podcast is sponsored by Lander Home Family Law, and Pacific Cascade Family Law, serving families in Oregon and Washington. If you are in need of legal counsel or have additional questions about a family law matter important to you, please visit our website at pacificcascadefamilylaw.com. You can also call our headquarters at 5032270200 to schedule a case evaluation with one of our seasoned attorneys, modern Family Matters, advocating for your better tomorrow, and offering legal solutions important to the modern family.