LEARN MORE ABOUT WHAT PROPERTY IS AND HOW IT IS DIVIDED IN A DIVORCE.
In a dissolution of marriage, one of the issues the court may have to decide is how to divide the
property between the parties. But what exactly is “property”?
It is anything that either party owns, whether tangible, like cars, furniture, and houses, or intangible, like bank accounts or retirement accounts.
After all property has been identified, the value must be determined. The value of property is the
amount it is worth minus the amount that is still owed on it. So if a car has a Bluebook value of
$5,000 and the car loan is $6,000, the car has negative value of $1,000, and isn’t an asset after
all; it’s a liability instead. But if the car is worth $8,000 and the loan is $6,000, the value of the
car is $2,000.
The next step is to figure out how to divide up the property. Marital property generally includes
all property obtained during the marriage, no matter whose name is on the title. There are some
exceptions, of course! Marital property is presumably split evenly, but in some cases one party
may be entitled to a larger share. Nonmarital property generally includes anything the parties
owned before the marriage, with some exceptions, and is not split between the parties.
Division of property requires knowledge of the law and some math, but at LaVia Law we can
help you with both!
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