Pursuant to an Administrative Order issued on April 2, 2008, the South Carolina Supreme Court drastically overhauled the Financial Declaration that must be filed in Family Court cases.  This is the first significant change to the Financial Declaration form in almost twenty years.

I believe that this new format will prove to be much more useful once the Judges, attorneys, and parties get used to it.  It not only provides more information, but it also provides more practical, helpful information.  Some of the more significant changes are:

• The field to include the social security number has been deleted;
• "Husband/Father" replaces "Husband" and "Wife/Mother" replaces "Wife";
• The "Marital Assets Addendum" section has been deleted, along with endnotes 1-4 on the previous form and endnotes 1-21 were added throughout the form to define the associated terms;
• The following sections were added to the form: "Any Non Marital Property Claimed By You," "Financial Accounts Section," "Voluntary Retirement Accounts and Pension Accounts Section," "Publicly Held Stocks, Bonds, Securities, Mutual Funds Section (Non-Retirement)," and "Real Estate Section."

You can download a copy of the new form by clicking HERE.