Hi, I'm Dave Ward, and I help business owners who are facing divorce. One of the questions I seem to be getting with greater and greater frequency is what happens to pets through the divorce process?
Well, in law, a pet is considered chattel or personal property, so ordinarily the court traditionally would treat pets as any other property and simply divide it equitably among the parties. Of course, we all know, if you're a pet owner like me, our pets are family, so when this situation arises, it's not usually satisfactory to hear that your pets can be treated like any other piece of property.
One of the things that courts have become more and more willing to do is to almost treat them sort of like children, in that sometimes what they'll be willing to do if the parties ask for it is to set up what is almost a custodial arrangement, where one of the parties has the pet during a specified period of time, with the other time, the pet being with the other party, and that way, everybody can continue to maintain the same bonds of love and affection that people have when you have a pet. So that's how it's getting treated more and more, not only by Georgia courts, but other courts.
If you have any questions that you'd like to get answers to or would like to discuss anything related to a case that perhaps you're looking at, give us a call to the number on the screen, and we would be happy to set up a time for us to sit down and speak with you. Thank you.