Everything that you and your spouse jointly own will be divided by the court upon filing for divorce. This will cover the priceless items for which you paid blood and sweat. Sometimes, though, you want to keep this property all to yourself and do not want to divide it. The court understands this and has legal processes designed for such issues.
So, if you are getting divorced and worrying about property division, contact The Harris Firm, LLC for legal advice. In addition, find the answers to all of your questions about property division during a divorce in this article.
How Will The Court Divide Property After Divorce?
- Equitable law distribution
In some states of America, equitable property law is used to divide property during divorce, in which property is not always equally divided.
Under this law, the property is fairly divided between the spouses based on many factors. These factors include.
- The age of the spouses
- The earnings of each spouse
- The value of the real estate
- The contribution of each spouse to the property
- The duration of marriage
- If this marriage is a second marriage
- Community distribution law
If you reside in states like Arizona, Texas, Washington, Nevada, California, etc, then the local divorce court will divide your property based on community distribution law. This law claims your assets as community assets and divides your property on a separate and community basis, as mentioned below.
- Separate Property
The separate property is the property inherited by one spouse or gifted to only one spouse during marriage, so this property will stay with one spouse solely. Therefore, the separate property is not divided between spouses except in the exception cases where the court finds it fair to divide the separate property with the other spouse.
- Community Property
The second type of property in community distribution law is community property. It is meant to be divided between spouses during divorce.
It involves the property bought by the collective efforts of both spouses or bought by the marital earnings of the spouses.
This property does not only include the jointly owned property of the spouses but also the property with separate names of spouses but the purchase was made with collectively earned money.
How Is Debt Divided After Divorce?
The division of debts during divorce is done under the judgment of the court, which decides who among the spouses is responsible for the payment of debt. However, if the debt papers were co-signed, then the creditors can sue the other spouse and ask for debt.
Therefore, after the judgment of the court, you should send a written note to the creditors to close the joint accounts so your ex-spouse does not use it in the future and make you responsible for the debt payment.
