Going through a divorce is an emotionally straining and frustrating experience that affects many aspects of your life. As you go through your married life, you accumulate assets together, like bank and retirement accounts, car titles, and mortgages. When the decision to end the marriage occurs, those assets must be divided.
No one gets married expecting to later divorce, which means that they usually don’t give much thought to who owns what property in the marriage unless a divorce becomes inevitable. When the unfortunate happens and the prospect of separation begins to loom, the process of sorting out the tangle of shared property can suddenly seem frustrating and even overwhelming.
In these situations, learning about the legal principles courts use to divide marital property during a divorce can clear up some of the confusion and help you understand what to expect. To help, we’ve composed a quick guide to the legal logic behind property division during a divorce.