Most of what is written about adoption in Michigan concerns getting to the order. Less is written about what the order does once it enters, and that is where the legal consequences actually live. Inheritance, the birth certificate, the sealed file, and a former parent’s standing all change by statute on that day, and each change is specific.

MCL 710.60 states the core effect. After the order of adoption, the person or persons adopting become the parent or parents of the adoptee under the law as though the adopted person had been born to them, and are liable for all the duties and entitled to all the rights of parents. Where the adoptee’s name is changed, the adoptee is known and called by the new name from that point.

Inheritance Moves in Both Directions

Subsection (2) removes any distinction between the rights and duties of natural progeny and adopted persons. The adopted person becomes an heir at law of the adopting parent or parents, and also of the lineal and collateral kindred of the adopting parents. An adopted child inherits from adoptive grandparents, aunts, and uncles on the same footing as a child born into the family.

The same subsection closes the door on the other side. Except as provided in MCL 700.2114(2) of the Estates and Protected Individuals Code, an adopted child is no longer an heir at law of a parent whose rights have been terminated under the adoption code or under chapter XIIA, nor of that parent’s lineal or collateral kindred.

The cross-reference to MCL 700.2114(2) is the exception families most often need to know about, and it is not described in the adoption code itself. Anyone planning around inheritance from a former parent’s family should have that provision read rather than assumed.

One relationship survives by express provision. The section does not prohibit the filing of an action or the entry of an order for grandparenting time under MCL 722.27b of the Child Custody Act. A biological grandparent’s ability to seek time is preserved even where the parent’s rights ended.

The File Locks and the Certificate Changes

MCL 710.67 governs the record. Records of proceedings in adoption cases, and the papers and books relating to them, are kept in separate locked files and are not open to inspection or copy except on order of a court of record for good cause shown, expressly permitting it.

The lock tightens after a short window. After 21 days following entry of the final order of adoption, the court shall not permit copy or inspection of the proceedings except as the section or MCL 710.68 otherwise provides. A person in charge of adoption records may not disclose the names of the biological or adoptive parents unless ordered by a court, except to meet the requirements for creating the new birth certificate.

That certificate is the visible result. The director of health and human services furnishes the adopting parents a certified copy of a new birth certificate in the adoptive name that does not disclose the adoption, and the original certificate is sealed. A birth certificate issued to an adopted person shall not refer to adoption and must conform as nearly as possible to the appearance of certificates issued in other cases. Our Michigan adoption page sets out the steps that produce the order in the first place.

What an Adult Adoptee Can Later Obtain

The lock is not permanent silence. MCL 710.68 sets timetables for information that can be released. Within 63 days after a request, a child placing agency, a court, or the department must provide in writing all of the nonidentifying information described in MCL 710.27 to an adoptive parent, an adult adoptee, a former parent, or an adult former sibling who asks for it.

Identifying information is different, and consent controls it. Within 63 days after a request about an adult adoptee, the agency, court, or department provides the adult adoptee’s most recent name and address to a former parent or adult former sibling where the adult adoptee has given written consent to release under the chapter. Without that consent, the identifying information is not released on request.

A request that reaches the wrong body is redirected rather than refused. Where the department or an agency receives a request for record information from an adult adoptee, former parent, or adult former sibling, it must identify the court that confirmed the adoption within 28 days, and a court receiving such a request identifies the agency that handled it.

Where a Stepparent Adoption Reaches This Point

A stepparent adoption over the other parent’s objection arrives at the same order through MCL 710.51(6), which allows the court, on notice and hearing, to terminate the other parent’s rights where both of two conditions are met for the two years before the petition. The other parent, having the ability to support or assist in supporting the child, must have failed or neglected to provide regular and substantial support, or failed to substantially comply with a support order. And that parent, having the ability to visit, contact, or communicate, must have regularly and substantially failed or neglected to do so.

Two details in that provision are easy to miss. A support order stating that support is $0.00, or that support is reserved, is treated as if no order had been entered, so the support prong is measured against ability rather than against the order. And both prongs are conditioned on ability, so a parent who lacked the means or the access is not measured against what they could not do.

Whichever route produces the order, the effects above follow from it. Inheritance from the terminated parent ends, subject to the estates code exception, and the record closes in the same way. The custody case that usually precedes a stepparent petition is covered on our Michigan child custody page.

The 21-day window after the order is the last point at which the file is readily reachable, and families who will later want copies of anything in it should think about that before it closes. If that is where your situation sits, call us at (800) 525-6386.

After the Order of Adoption Enters

An adoption order settles a family’s legal relationships in a way few other orders do, and the consequences are easier to understand in advance than to unwind later. We handle adoption at Neumann Law Group alongside the rest of our Michigan family law practice, in Northern Michigan and statewide. Call our office at (800) 525-6386, or contact us online, and we will talk it through with you.

Michigan’s spousal support statute is short, old, and permissive, and it contains no calculation of any kind. People arrive expecting a formula like the one that governs child support and find instead a sentence that authorizes a court to act and says almost nothing about how. Reading that sentence closely explains most of what follows in a support case.

MCL 552.13(1) provides that in every action for divorce or separation, the court may require either party to pay alimony for the suitable maintenance of the adverse party. The operative word is may. Nothing in the section entitles anyone to support, and nothing in it sets an amount or a duration.

What the Sentence Actually Authorizes

Three things sit inside subsection (1), and they are usually treated as one. The first is alimony for the suitable maintenance of the adverse party, which is the ongoing support most people mean by the word. Suitable maintenance is the standard, and it is not defined further.

The second is an order to pay such sums as are deemed proper and necessary to conserve any real or personal property owned by the parties or either of them. That is a preservation power, aimed at keeping an asset from deteriorating or being lost during the case, and it is distinct from support.

The third is an order to pay any sums necessary to enable the adverse party to carry on or defend the action, during its pendency. That is the statutory basis for temporary support and for attorney fees where one spouse controls the money and the other cannot otherwise litigate. Our Michigan alimony page covers how each of those is requested.

Remarriage Is Grounds, Not a Trigger

Subsection (2) is the part most often stated wrong, including by people who have read it. An award of alimony may be terminated by the court as of the date the party receiving alimony remarries, unless a contrary agreement is specifically stated in the judgment of divorce.

The court may terminate. The award does not end on its own, and the statute does not describe remarriage as a default that operates without an order. A payer who stops paying on the wedding date has stopped without authority, and a recipient planning around an automatic cutoff has planned around a rule that is not there.

The same subsection adds that termination does not affect alimony payments that accrued before it. Amounts already due remain due, whatever the court does with the award going forward.

Where the Amount Comes From Instead

With no formula in the statute, the amount and duration come from the court’s discretion, exercised against factors developed in case law rather than written into the section. The Sparks factors are the framework Michigan courts apply, and they reach past relations and conduct, length of the marriage, ability to work, source and amount of property, age, ability to pay, present situation, needs, health, prior standard of living, general principles of equity, and any other relevant consideration.

That list is why two cases with the same incomes can produce very different awards. A court is weighing a set of considerations rather than applying a schedule, and the evidence that moves the weighing is evidence about the marriage and the parties, not a spreadsheet.

The contrast with child support is the clearest way to see it. Under MCL 552.605(2) a court must order the formula amount for a child unless it makes specific findings that the formula would be unjust or inappropriate. Spousal support carries no such presumption, no such formula, and no such findings requirement. One is bound by arithmetic and the other by discretion.

Support After the Property Is Divided

A second statute ties spousal support to the property award. Under MCL 552.23(1), where the estate and effects awarded to a party on judgment are insufficient for that party’s suitable support and maintenance, the court may also award spousal support out of the real and personal estate, in gross or otherwise, after considering the ability of either party to pay, the character and situation of the parties, and all the other circumstances.

The sequence that provision creates is worth noticing. Property is divided first, and support is considered against what the division left. A spouse who received substantial assets is in a different position on support than one who did not, because the statute asks whether the award was sufficient before it asks anything else.

Modification runs through MCL 552.28. On petition of either party, after a judgment for alimony, the court may revise and alter the judgment respecting the amount or payment, and may make any judgment respecting those matters that it might have made in the original action. That authority is broad, and it is the reason a support provision drafted as modifiable stays open for the life of the award.

Whether a support provision is written as modifiable or not is decided at judgment and is often not read again until someone wants to change it. It is worth reading before it is signed. We are glad to look at it with you before anything is filed. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

Reading a Support Provision Before Signing It

A support award is built from discretion, which means the record that informs that discretion is what a spouse actually controls. Our Michigan family law team at Neumann Law Group handles support matters from Traverse City and Grand Rapids to Detroit, and the property division that precedes any support question is covered on our Michigan property division page. We are happy to talk it through with you. Call (800) 525-6386 or contact our office.

Michigan courts decide contested custody by working through 12 lettered factors set out at MCL 722.23, running from (a) to (l). The statute assigns them no weights, so no single factor decides a case on its own, and a parent who is strong on most of them can still lose on the ones that carry the dispute.

Best interests of the child is defined at MCL 722.23 as the sum total of those 12 factors, to be considered, evaluated, and determined by the court. Reading them as they are actually written is the fastest way to see what evidence speaks to each one. The lettering matters too, because a judge, a Friend of the Court referee, and the other parent’s attorney will all refer to them that way. Custody is decided in circuit court alongside the rest of a Michigan family law case, and the same best-interest standard governs an initial order and a later request to change one.

The Factors About the Relationship Itself

Factor (a) looks at the love, affection, and other emotional ties existing between the parties involved and the child. Factor (b) looks at the capacity and disposition of each party to give the child love, affection, and guidance, and to continue the child’s education and raising in his or her religion or creed, if any. Both reach backward at evidence of what the relationship has actually been rather than what a parent intends it to become.

Factor (j) is the one most often argued and most often misunderstood. It asks about the willingness and ability of each party to facilitate and encourage a close and continuing parent-child relationship with the other parent. A 2016 amendment added a limit that matters a great deal. A court may not consider negatively, under this factor, any reasonable action a parent took to protect the child or themselves from sexual assault or domestic violence by the other parent.

That amendment closed a genuine trap. Before it, a parent who withheld contact for safety reasons could be scored down on the friendly-parent factor for doing so. The protection is narrow, covering reasonable protective action, and it is worth raising expressly rather than assuming a court will apply it on its own.

The Factors About Stability and Continuity

Factor (d) asks about the length of time the child has lived in a stable, satisfactory environment, and adds the desirability of maintaining continuity. Factor (e) asks about the permanence, as a family unit, of the existing or proposed custodial home. Factor (h) looks at the home, school, and community record of the child.

These three tend to favor whatever arrangement has been working, which is why the period between separation and the custody hearing often shapes the outcome more than anything argued at it. A temporary schedule that runs for a year is evidence under (d) and (e) by the time a judge reaches the merits.

The Custody Factors That Look at the Parents

Factor (c) asks about the capacity and disposition of each party to provide food, clothing, and medical care, or other remedial care recognized and permitted under Michigan law in place of medical care, along with other material needs. The alternative-care language reflects religious practice and is rarely at issue, but it is in the statute.

Factor (f) is the moral fitness of the parties, and Michigan courts read it narrowly, as conduct bearing on parenting rather than conduct a judge disapproves of. Factor (g) is the mental and physical health of the parties.

Factor (k) is domestic violence, regardless of whether the violence was directed against or witnessed by the child. The phrase “or witnessed by” is doing real work. Violence between the parents that the child saw is within the factor even where the child was never a target, which is a point parents routinely assume cuts the other way. Where safety is the immediate concern, a Michigan personal protection order runs on its own track and does not wait for the custody case.

Evidence organized against the lettered factors does its work long before a hearing date, and parents in Grand Traverse County and across Michigan can start organizing it now. We are glad to look at it with you before anything is filed. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

The Child’s Preference and the Catch-All

Factor (i) is the reasonable preference of the child, if the court considers the child to be of sufficient age to express preference. The statute sets no age. A judge typically speaks with the child privately rather than in open court, and the preference is one input rather than a decision.

Factor (l) is any other factor the court considers relevant to a particular custody dispute. It exists because the first 11 cannot anticipate every family, and it is where facts that do not fit elsewhere are argued.

Why the Custodial Environment Comes First

The factors are not always the first question. Where a court is asked to change an existing custody order, MCL 722.27(1)(c) bars it from changing an established custodial environment unless clear and convincing evidence shows the change is in the child’s best interest.

The statute defines that environment. It is established where, over an appreciable time, the child naturally looks to the custodian in that environment for guidance, discipline, the necessities of life, and parental comfort. Age, physical environment, and the inclination of the custodian and child as to permanency are all considered, and an environment can exist with both parents at once.

I often get asked which factor matters most, and the statute does not answer that. The more useful question in a modification case is whether an established custodial environment exists at all, because that determines the standard of proof before any factor is reached.

Building a Custody Record Factor by Factor

A custody case is won on evidence organized factor by factor, and the record that a judge weighs is built long before the hearing. At Neumann Law Group, we represent parents in Michigan child custody matters from the temporary order through modification. We are happy to talk it through with you. Call (800) 525-6386 or contact our office.

A Michigan custody order is built to last, and the statute that allows it to be changed is arranged as a series of thresholds rather than a single question. A parent asking for a different arrangement has to clear each one in order, and the best-interest factors that people expect to argue first are reached last.

MCL 722.27(1)(c) permits a court to modify or amend its previous judgments or orders for proper cause shown or because of change of circumstances. It then bars the court from changing an established custodial environment unless clear and convincing evidence shows the change is in the child’s best interest. Two gates, in that sequence, and only then the factors.

Proper Cause or a Change of Circumstances

The first gate is the threshold showing. A motion to modify must rest on proper cause shown or on a change of circumstances, and a court that finds neither does not proceed to anything else. This is the provision that keeps a custody order from being relitigated every time a parent is unhappy with it.

The two phrases are alternatives, and they are not defined in the section. A change of circumstances points at something that has happened since the order was entered. Proper cause points at a reason substantial enough to warrant revisiting the order at all. Both are measured against the existing order rather than against the other parent’s preferences.

The gate stays open until the child turns 18, and, subject to MCL 552.605b of the support and parenting time enforcement act, until the child reaches 19 years and six months. That extension tracks the age to which support can continue for a child still in high school, which is why the two figures appear together.

Whether an Established Custodial Environment Exists

The second gate decides the standard of proof for everything that follows. The court shall not modify or amend its previous judgments or orders, or issue a new order, so as to change the established custodial environment of a child unless there is presented clear and convincing evidence that the change is in the child’s best interest.

The definition is statutory rather than judicial, and it turns on what the child does rather than on what either parent intends. The test asks whether, over an appreciable time, the child has naturally looked to a custodian for guidance, discipline, the necessities of life, and parental comfort, with the child’s age, the physical setting, and both parties’ inclination toward permanency also in the balance. A parent can have created that environment without ever meaning to.

Whether such an environment exists is decided before the factors are weighed, because it sets the burden the moving parent carries. An environment can exist with both parents at once, and it can exist by virtue of an arrangement neither parent formally agreed to but both lived under. A temporary schedule that ran for a year is often the environment the statute is describing, which is covered in more depth on our Michigan child custody page.

Then, and Only Then, the Best-Interest Factors

The 12 lettered factors at MCL 722.23 govern the third stage. What has changed by the time a court reaches them is the burden. Where an established custodial environment would be altered, the moving parent must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the proposed change is in the child’s best interest, which is a materially heavier showing than the preponderance that governs an initial determination.

The same section adds a protection for a parent on active duty. Where a motion for change of custody is filed while a parent is on active duty, the court shall not consider that parent’s absence due to active duty status in a best-interest determination. A deployment does not become evidence against the deployed parent.

The factors are the same ones applied when custody was first decided, and the evidence that answers them is largely built from the period between the order and the motion. A parent contemplating a change is usually better served by documenting that period as it happens than by reconstructing it afterward. I often get asked what a parent should be doing in the year before a motion, and the honest answer is that they should be building the record the third gate will be decided on.

Why the Original Order Survives Appeal

The gates are reinforced by the standard on appeal. MCL 722.28 provides that, to expedite the resolution of a custody dispute by prompt and final adjudication, all orders and judgments of the circuit court shall be affirmed on appeal unless the trial judge made findings of fact against the great weight of the evidence, committed a palpable abuse of discretion, or committed a clear legal error on a major issue.

That is a deferential standard by design, and the statute says why. Finality is treated as a value in itself in custody cases, which means the trial court’s decision at each of the three gates is the decision that is most likely to stand.

Child-related provisions of a divorce judgment can be revised on the petition of either parent under MCL 552.17, as the circumstances of the parents and the benefit of the children require. That authority runs through the same three gates when custody is what is being revised, and it does not replace them.

Most modification motions that fail do so at the first gate, before a factor is argued. Whether the threshold is met is a question worth answering honestly before a motion is filed. Call our office at (800) 525-6386 and we will walk through it with you.

Before Filing a Motion to Change Custody

A motion that clears the threshold and misjudges the burden can leave a parent worse positioned than before it was filed, because the record it creates is the record the next motion inherits. We handle Michigan family law matters at Neumann Law Group in circuit courts across the state, including the modification questions that follow a Michigan divorce. Call us at (800) 525-6386 or contact our office to arrange a consultation.

Michigan sets three separate statutory thresholds before a divorce judgment can be entered. They govern where the parties have lived, what the complaint is allowed to say, and how much time has to pass before a court will take testimony. None of the three turns on which spouse is at fault.

The residency test requires one spouse to have lived in Michigan for 180 days and in the filing county for 10 days immediately before the complaint is filed, under MCL 552.9(1). The timing rule stops a court from taking proofs for 60 days after filing, or six months where there are dependent minor children under 18, under MCL 552.9f. Those numbers are floors rather than estimates, and most divorces take longer than the floor rather than exactly as long.

The Residency Test and Its One Exception

Michigan’s residency test is a two-part requirement that one spouse has lived in the state for 180 days and in the filing county for 10 days before the complaint is filed. Both parts run to the date of filing, and either spouse can satisfy them. Divorce is filed in circuit court, which is the forum for every Michigan family law matter rather than district court. A person who moved into a new county last week can still file, in the county left behind, so long as the 10 days were met there.

The statute waives the 10-day county requirement in one situation, and it takes three conditions together rather than one. The defendant must have been born in or be a citizen of a country other than the United States. The parties must have a minor child. And there must be information allowing the court to reasonably conclude that the child is at risk of being taken out of the United States and kept in another country by the defendant. All three have to be set out in the complaint.

The 180-day state requirement is not waived by that provision. Only the county requirement is, and the point of the waiver is to let a parent file quickly in whichever Michigan county is practical when a child may be about to leave the country.

Why the Complaint Cannot Explain What Went Wrong

Michigan is a no-fault state, and MCL 552.6(1) is stricter about that than most people expect. A complaint alleges that there has been a breakdown of the marriage relationship to the extent that the objects of matrimony have been destroyed and there remains no reasonable likelihood that the marriage can be preserved. The same subsection then says the plaintiff “shall make no other explanation of the grounds for divorce than by the use of the statutory language.”

A spouse cannot plead adultery, cruelty, or desertion as grounds, and there is no advantage to be gained by trying. The defendant may admit or deny that language without further explanation, and an admission is not binding on the court either way. Where the evidence of breakdown is presented in open court, the statute says the court shall enter a judgment dissolving the marriage.

Conduct still has a place in a divorce, though not as grounds. Fault can be weighed in dividing property and in deciding spousal support, which is a separate question from whether the divorce is granted. Our Michigan property division attorneys deal with that distinction constantly, because clients reasonably assume the two are connected.

What the Waiting Period Actually Stops

MCL 552.9f is usually described as a waiting period, and it is more precise than that. The statute bars a court from taking proofs or testimony until 60 days from the filing of the complaint, and until six months where there are dependent minor children under 18. Nothing stops the case from moving during that time. Discovery, temporary orders, and negotiation all proceed.

The 60-day rule carries an exception for desertion. The six-month rule carries a different one. In cases of unusual hardship, or such compelling necessity as shall appeal to the conscience of the court, a judge may take testimony any time after 60 days on petition and a proper showing. That shortens the six months to the same 60-day floor, and it is a real motion with a real standard rather than a formality.

The question I get asked first is almost never about grounds. It is about how long this will take, and the honest answer is that the statute sets the earliest possible date, while the parties and the county docket set the actual one.

When the Other Spouse Lives Out of State

The same statute adds a requirement that catches people by surprise. Where the defendant was not domiciled in Michigan when the suit began, or was not domiciled here when the cause for divorce arose, the complainant must prove one of two things before a judgment enters. Either the parties actually lived and cohabited as spouses within Michigan, or the complainant has in good faith resided in Michigan for one year immediately before filing.

That is a longer period than the 180-day residency test, and it applies on top of it. A person who moved to Michigan seven months ago, leaving a spouse who has never lived here, meets the residency test and still cannot finish the case on residence alone until the year is up.

Threshold questions are cheaper to get right at filing than to correct afterward, and we review filing eligibility for clients across Michigan before a complaint goes in. We talk these questions through with you. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

Before a Complaint Is Filed in Circuit Court

Filing correctly the first time avoids a dismissal on a threshold that has nothing to do with the merits, and the thresholds interact in ways that are not obvious from any one statute. At Neumann Law Group, we represent spouses through every stage of a Michigan divorce, from the first filing question through judgment. If you would like us to look at your situation, call (800) 525-6386 or contact us through our website.

Michigan divides the marital estate equitably and generally leaves each spouse’s separate property alone. Two statutes cut into that second rule, and they do so on grounds that have nothing to do with whether the property was ever mixed with marital funds. A spouse who kept an inheritance entirely apart can still find part of it awarded to the other side.

MCL 552.401 is the first route. It lets a court award to one party all or a portion of property owned by the other spouse, as appears equitable under all the circumstances, where the evidence shows that the party contributed to the acquisition, improvement, or accumulation of that property. The second route, in MCL 552.23, turns on need rather than contribution.

Contribution to Acquisition, Improvement, or Accumulation

The contribution route asks a factual question about the property itself. Did the spouse who does not own it contribute to acquiring it, improving it, or accumulating it? Where the evidence says yes, the court has authority to award all or part of it, and the measure is what appears equitable under all the circumstances of the case.

Contribution is read broadly in practice, and the statute’s three verbs are deliberately different. Acquisition reaches the purchase. Improvement reaches what was done to the asset afterward, which is where a spouse’s labor on a house or a cottage usually enters. Accumulation reaches growth over time, which is the argument made about a business or an investment account that one spouse owned before the marriage and both spouses worked to build.

This is a different mechanism from commingling, and the two are often run together. Commingling asks whether separate property lost its separate character by being mixed with marital funds. Section 401 assumes the property stayed separate and reaches it anyway, on the strength of what the other spouse put in. Our Michigan property division page sets out how the marital-versus-separate line is drawn in the first place.

Insufficiency for Suitable Support

MCL 552.23(1) opens a second door on entry of a judgment of divorce or separate maintenance. Where the estate and effects awarded to either party are insufficient for the suitable support and maintenance of that party, and of any children committed to their care, the court may also award part of the real and personal estate of either party, and spousal support out of that estate.

The statute names what the court weighs. It acts after considering the ability of either party to pay, the character and situation of the parties, and all the other circumstances of the case. The award may be made in gross or otherwise, as the court considers just and reasonable.

The sequencing matters. The court first divides what is marital, then asks whether the result leaves one spouse without suitable support, and only then reaches into separate property to fill the gap. A spouse arguing under this section is arguing about need after the ordinary division, not about fairness of the division itself.

Property That Came by Reason of the Marriage

A third provision is narrower and older. MCL 552.19 permits a court, on annulment, divorce, or separate maintenance, to make a further judgment restoring to either party the whole or such part as it considers just and reasonable of the real and personal estate that came to either party by reason of the marriage, or to award the value of it to be paid in money.

The phrase by reason of the marriage does the limiting. It reaches property one spouse received because the marriage existed, which is a smaller category than property acquired during it, and the remedy is restoration rather than division.

Together, the three sections describe the whole of what a Michigan court may do with property that is not marital. Contribution reaches separate property that the other spouse helped build. Need reaches it where the ordinary award leaves someone short. Restoration returns what the marriage itself brought.

The Decree Transfers Title by Itself

An award under section 401 does not wait on a deed. The statute provides that the decree, upon becoming final, has the same force and effect as a quitclaim deed of the real estate, if any, or a bill of sale of the personal property, if any, given by the party’s spouse to the party.

The practical effect is that a judgment awarding part of a spouse’s separately titled house or account transfers the interest on its own terms. A spouse who refuses to sign afterward has not prevented anything, and a title search will eventually find the judgment where it would have found a deed.

That effect also means the language of the judgment is the document that matters. A vague award produces a vague transfer, and it is easier to write the description precisely at judgment than to litigate what it meant years later.

Separate property is often the largest asset in a Northern Michigan divorce, and whether it is reachable is settled by evidence rather than by the name on the title. That evidence is worth assembling early. One call is usually enough for us to tell you where things stand. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

Reading a Decree for What It Actually Transfers

An award that reaches separate property has to be proved under one of these sections, and a judgment that grants one has to be drafted so it transfers what was meant. We handle Michigan family law matters at Neumann Law Group in circuit courts from Grand Traverse County to Wayne County, and spousal support questions that follow a property award are covered on our Michigan alimony page. We are glad to talk through any of these questions. Call (800) 525-6386 or send us a message and we will get back to you.

A Michigan will can leave a surviving spouse nothing, and the spouse can decline to accept that. The elective share is the mechanism, and it is smaller and more conditional than its reputation. Three separate allowances that sit outside the election are frequently worth more, and they do not require the spouse to elect anything at all.

Under MCL 700.2202(2), the surviving spouse of a Michigan domiciliary who dies with a will may file a written election either to abide by the will or to take one half of the sum or share that would have passed to the spouse had the decedent died intestate, reduced by one half of the value of all property derived by the spouse from the decedent by any means other than testate or intestate succession at death.

The Share Is Half, and Then It Is Reduced

The formula has two steps, and the second one is the one that surprises people. The starting point is not the intestate share but half of it. A spouse who would have taken the first $150,000 plus half the balance under intestacy starts the election at half of that figure.

The reduction then subtracts half the value of everything the spouse received from the decedent outside the will and outside intestacy. Joint accounts that passed by survivorship, life insurance naming the spouse, a retirement account with the spouse as beneficiary, and a home held as tenants by the entirety are all property derived from the decedent by other means, and half their value comes off the elective share.

A spouse who received a house and a policy that way may find the election produces nothing further, because the reduction exceeds the half-share. The election is a floor for a spouse left out entirely, not a supplement for a spouse who was provided for outside the will. Our Michigan wills page covers how a will and those non-probate transfers are coordinated.

One Choice, Made Alive, Within 63 Days

Subsection (3) limits the spouse to one choice unless the will plainly shows a contrary intent, and it requires the election to be exercised during the surviving spouse’s lifetime. A spouse who dies before electing has not elected, and the right does not pass to that spouse’s estate.

The deadline is short and it runs from probate events rather than from the death. The election must be made within 63 days after the date for presentment of claims, or within 63 days after service of the inventory on the surviving spouse, whichever is later. Both dates are set inside the administration, so a spouse who is not following the estate closely can miss the window without knowing it opened.

The statute builds in a safeguard. Notice of the right of election must be served on the decedent’s spouse, and proof of that notice filed with the court, unless the spouse files an election instead. A personal representative who is also a child from a prior marriage owes the surviving spouse that notice.

Three Allowances That Do Not Depend on Electing

Separate from the elective share, the surviving spouse takes three allowances that the statute describes as in addition to whatever passes by will, by intestacy, or by election. They are not chargeable against the spouse’s share and they have priority over creditors.

The homestead allowance under MCL 700.2402 is $15,000, adjusted for inflation under MCL 700.1210, and it is exempt from and has priority over all claims against the estate except administration costs and reasonable funeral and burial expenses. Where there is no surviving spouse, the decedent’s minor and dependent children divide it.

Exempt property under MCL 700.2404 gives the spouse household furniture, automobiles, furnishings, appliances, and personal effects up to $10,000 in value above any security interests, with a right to other estate assets to make up any shortfall. The family allowance under MCL 700.2403 provides reasonable maintenance during administration, payable to the spouse for the household, and the personal representative may set it in a lump sum of up to $18,000, adjusted, or in monthly installments for a year, under MCL 700.2405.

What Can and Cannot Be Planned Around

A will cannot remove the allowances, and it cannot remove the right to elect. What planning can do is change the arithmetic the election runs on, because property that passes to the spouse outside the will reduces the elective share by half its value. A decedent who wants the spouse provided for in a particular way, and the rest of the estate left to children from a prior marriage, is working with that reduction rather than against it.

Specifically devised property is protected in one respect. Under MCL 700.2405, if the estate is otherwise sufficient, property specifically devised shall not be used to satisfy homestead allowance or exempt property. A particular item left to a particular child is not the first thing reached to fund the spouse’s allowances where other assets can cover them.

The interaction of the election, the reduction, and the allowances is arithmetic, and it can be run on paper before a will is signed rather than in probate afterward. Call our office at (800) 525-6386 and we will walk through it with you.

Running the Arithmetic Before the Will Is Signed

A plan that leaves a spouse out has to account for the elective share, the reduction that shrinks it, and the three allowances that stand apart from it, and the result is usually not what the plan’s author expected. We prepare wills and trusts at Neumann Law Group for blended and second-marriage families as part of our Michigan estate planning practice across Northern Michigan and statewide. Call us at (800) 525-6386 or contact our office to arrange a consultation.