Several years ago a New York judge ordered Brian McGurk to pay his wife, Dorothy McGurk, $850 a month in lifetime alimony and gave her the marital residence because of her disability.

Recently Brian saw an entry on her blog that she was now belly dancing.  Furious, he took her back to court.

Dorothy claimed that her doctor had prescribed belly dancing as therapy for her injuries in a 1997 car accident.  The doctor however did not support that claim in court.

The judge reduced alimony to $400 a month, ordered her to pay her husband’s attorney fees of $5,000 and to give him 60% of the proceeds from the sale of the house.

As Shakira says, “Hips Don’t Lie”.

We sometimes say the legal fees in a divorce are as much as a new car. But whether you buy a Volkswagon or a Mercedes depends on whether you and your spouse can cooperate or have to fight about who gets what.

As if that weren’t bad enough, along comes a troubled economy.

Slumping real estate prices are adding a new complication to dividing marital assets. The house is usually the largest asset in the divorce. Not so long ago, even couples in short marriages that bought a house together, could sell and divide hundreds of thousands of dollars in the affluent neighborhoods where we practice law.

Now, a sale can take months and people are delaying the sale of the marital residence for better times. Sometimes, they enter into joint ventures in their settlement agreements to own and manage the property after the divorce.

Read more about “Divorce a Luxury in a Bad Economy” by Susan Todd.