Dividing Property During Divorce: Avoid Comingling Assets

Without legal intervention by asset division attorneys, property disposition can include property in the martial estate pool that doesn’t belong there. This error can and does happen to all sorts of assets owned by a spouse prior to marriage, as their sole and separate property. However, this error does not need to stand, nor should it continue with other assets. If particular assets are important to you or they will enable you to meet your future financial obligations, they are worth fighting for. Your best course of action may be to take a practical approach to identifying and excluding assets from the marital estate.

Unknowingly comingling assets can muddy the waters of distribution

Assets you might try to separate from the marital estate have a history — for certain assets, such as cash, interest income, investments and profits, this makes matters tricky. What if one spouse had a brokerage account before the marriage? Who owns the income from that account during the marriage? What happens if both the principal and interest is used to purchase another asset, such as income property? Finally, who is entitled to the profit when the property is sold?

Florida law provides that once separate property is comingled with marital property, it becomes a marital asset. The party alleging the funds or asset is separate property has the burden of proving that it came from a non-marital source. This process is often referred to as tracing the asset to its separate property characteristics. These complicated cases of dividing assets in Fort Lauderdale require the skills of a divorce attorney.

Call a Fort Lauderdale divorce attorney who will protect your best interests

For 15 years, Fort Lauderdale’s Vanessa L. Prieto Law Offices LLC has guided clients through divorce. Call our Fort Lauderdale office today at 954.687.9143 or contact us online to schedule your initial consultation.