How Will Assets Be Divided After a Divorce?
Divorce is a stressful process for everyone involved. As much as you would hope for the ordeal to be over and done with no additional headaches, this is often not the case. It is natural to be concerned about your future during this time, and it is only right that you know how to protect that future. If you are wondering how assets will be divided after a divorce, please contact Tanya L. Freeman, Attorney At Law today to schedule a free consultation with our experienced Jersey City divorce attorneys.
How Will Assets Be Divided After a Divorce? | Equitable Distribution
In general, debts and assets accumulated from the day of your marriage until the day one of the parties filed for divorce are subject to equitable distribution. This might include income, savings accounts, retirement accounts, stocks, a house, other properties, a business, even gambling winnings. People often think – wrongly – that any account opened in one party’s name belongs to that party alone. In fact, if that account accumulated value between the date of the couple’s marriage and the date one party filed a complaint, it is still subject to equitable distribution. Even book royalties and one partner’s frequent flier miles are subject to distribution.
How Will Assets Be Divided After a Divorce? | Premarital Assets
What constitutes a “premarital” asset can sometimes be difficult to determine, unless a spouse took measures to keep an asset strictly separate over the course of a marriage. If you have a bank account before a marriage and add your spouse onto that account, it will be difficult to figure out what part of that account is “premarital” and what part is “marital.” If you have a 401(k), get married, and decide to dissolve that marriage after 20 years, you must have a statement from before the marriage to demonstrate what was in that account – and you may need to hire a forensic accountant to calculate that money’s growth during the marriage, and an equitable division of its current value.
How Will Assets Be Divided After a Divorce? | Marital Home
What happens to your home depends mostly upon you and your spouse. In some cases, spouses decide immediately that they want to put a home on the market and split or escrow the selling price – each is sure that he or she doesn’t want to or can’t afford to maintain the property.
Children are an important factor. If one child is entering his or her senior year of high school, for example, one parent may want to keep the home for that year to provide some stability or stay within a certain school district.
Proximity is also an issue. One spouse may want to keep the marital home because of its nearness to a workplace. In some cases, a spouse wants to keep an inherited home.
In the case of domestic violence, the court will issue a restraining order separating the parties immediately. However, in some cases, parties live under the same roof until the day the divorce is finalized. Ultimately, the determinant will be financial. If neither party can afford to keep the home, or can’t manage to get a mortgage refinanced, you must sell the property.
If you have any other questions about dividing assets, please contact our experienced New Jersey divorce lawyers today to schedule a free consultation.
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