Tips For Handling Smart Home Features During Your Separation
If you are currently preparing to separate from your spouse and possibly pursue divorce, you should be cautious during this separation if you have smart home features at your house. Smart home features are great to have; however, they can result in problems for married couples who separate or divorce. Here are several things to think about if this is the case with your home.
Smart home features allow you to monitor things at home
Having smart home features in your house is a great way to monitor your home when you are not there and to feel safer when you are there, but these features can result in problems if you are getting divorced. For example, if your home has a surveillance camera system, it can create problems if you are the spouse who stays living in the house while the other spouse moves out. The other spouse could actually use this system to watch you from afar. This may leave you feeling very uncomfortable, and it might even cause you to feel fearful, especially if your spouse is abusive in any way.
Additionally, if you have smart home features that do things such as turning lights on and off or changing settings on the thermostat, your spouse might make changes to these things just for spite, if he or she continued to have access to these features.
You can usually keep the features but limit access
If you are going through this right now, you should consider changing the passwords on the accounts, if you have access to this. This would eliminate your spouse's ability to access the smart home features and eliminate the possibility of him or her changing things or watching you. If your spouse has control over these things, shutting them off or making changes to your account might not be an option for you.
Talk to your lawyer if you have issues
If you are in a position where you cannot control the smart home features, you should talk to your lawyer. You might be able to get a court order to either shut the features off or limit your spouse's access to them during your separation. You would likely need to go to court for a hearing to get this approved, but it would be worthwhile.
A divorce lawyer will be able to tell you more about your rights when it comes to smart home features you have. If you have questions about this, talk to a lawyer soon.