Who Is Going To Take The Animals During Divorce – Santa Clarita
Have you thought about who is going to take the animals when you get divorced?
Believe it or not, animals are property that need to be divided, just like your home, cars and bank accounts. But unlike the property, there is no way to get 50% of the dog, so there is going to have to be some discussion on who is getting Fido.
Most people don’t address the issue of who is getting the family pet. In fact, we don’t usually address this in the judgment, but you certainly can.
I was asked, just this week, how the issues about their clients dogs can be addressed and when.
As mentioned above, dogs, cats and hamsters need to go to someone. In most cases, you can simply decide who is going to get the pets.
In other cases, you can decide to include who is getting the dog by including them on the divorce judgment forms and assigning them to one of the parties, just like you do all the other property.
On the divorce judgment forms, there is two sections for dividing up property. If the dog was the family pet, this would be considered community property. You would simply list the pet on the community property section under either the petitioner or respondent.
Dogs are considered chattel which is a fancy legal term for property. You can research that term if your interested.
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