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Division of Marital Property, Disputes

Each party is entitled to all of their own separate property, and 1/2 of the community property.  Thus, key to this area is understanding what is community property, and what is separate property.  

This area will involve three steps:

• First: identifying all of the assets and debts.  The issues that arise on this topic are hidden or undisclosed assets or debts.
• Second: determining if the asset/debt is either community, or separate property, or a mixture. If it is a mixture, then determining what percentage is community and what percentage is separate can be difficult.  There are many specialized rules for this area.
• Third: determining the value of the asset or debt

If you don’t have much property, this may not be much of an issue. On the other end of the spectrum is where there is a business that was started or increased during marriage, and/or houses that were owned prior to marriage but paid for during marriage; and/or stock options; and/or where inheritance money during marriage was used to acquire things, and other issues.