Fifty-fifty bargaining in a divorce covers only marital property & not separate assets, income & investments?

Answer 1

All should be covered before the final divorce decree. If not you may lose more than you want.

Answer 2

Is this a question or statement? Typically things are split 50/50 for anything that is considered a marital asset or liability. This includes anything that you owned during the time of the marriage, regardless of whose name it was under.

If you find out later that assets were hidden, too bad. The only time this can be addressed is during the "discovery" phase which can extend all the way until the final decree is signed.

Answer 3

I suppose that depends on what state you live in..but in general, you are correct. Although, you may have to prove that it is seperate property. It helps to keep good records.

Seperate Property is typically property acquired prior to marriage that has not been 'co-mingled'. It can also include inheritance, gifts, etc. There's a lot of grey area here because there are lots of circumstances that will effect seperate property. For example, rental property owned by one spouse prior to marriage is seperate, unless income from this rental has been co-mingled with community property $$...then it gets confusing. The best thing to do is keep seperate property, assets, etc in a seperate account so you can verify where the $$ goes.

Answer 4

If you found out after settlement that there were assets that were hidden, you can usually go back to court on it. Anything that was acquired during the marriage is considered community property and in CA anyway, it's 50/50. You usually also settle out pensions, annuities, IRA's and other types of investment and retirement accounts. The judge tries to get the split of assets as close to equal as possible.