Four Steps for Dividing Marital Property
One of the most important steps in creating a divorce agreement is deciding how you will divide marital (or joint) property. This is called division of assets.
In this excellent blog posting, Joy S. Rosenthal lays out the basic steps:
1. Identify all of the property either spouse owns. You must share detailed information with each other.
2. Value the assets. This is easy for bank and brokerage accounts, but you might have to hire a neutral appraiser to value a business or real estate.
3. Determine whether it is separate or marital property. This depends on a lot of different factors.
4. Distribute the Marital Property.
While dividing up the marital property often seems like an insurmountable task, a qualified attorney will have the resources and training to make sure every detail gets done.