A friend sent me a message the other day about divorce to ask me about her divorce. It happens all the time! She had gotten an inheritance from her grandmother, she said, and used it to buy a car and a trailer, but that her soon to be ex was keeping it hostage and she couldn’t convince him that it was hers. (Under Virginia law, inherited property is separate property.) “Should I just give him half and move on?” she asked. In this case, I get it. These two people really didn’t have anything … [Read more...]
Inheritance and Virginia Divorce
Inheritance and Divorce Lots of people are, at some point or another, the beneficiary of some kind of inheritance. For many of us, it’s not significant monetarily, but, for others, it is. In fact, for some people, it’s a tremendous amount. An inheritance can be life changing. I’ve had clients who live in a home that they inherited, that live off of shockingly large trust funds, or who are looking forward to an inheritance at some point in the future. I’ve also had clients whose husbands … [Read more...]
Dividing Inheritance in Divorce
Dividing Inheritance in Divorce You probably already know (or at least suspect) that things that you earned or purchased during the marriage are marital property, and will be divided in the divorce. For most people, that means we’re talking about dividing the big ticket items – real property (houses and land), retirement and investment accounts, bank accounts, and bigger items of personal property, like cars, boats, and airplanes. How is an inheritance divided in divorce? If you’ve received … [Read more...]
Dividing personal property in divorce
Technically, everything should get divided in divorce. Anything, that is, that was earned, purchased or acquired during the marriage.Technically, everything should get divided in divorce. Anything, that is, that was earned, purchased or acquired during the marriage. In Virginia (as in most places, though I can’t speak for anywhere outside the Commonwealth), property is divided into three separate categories: marital, separate, and hybrid. Before we divide it in divorce, we classify it. … [Read more...]
Virginia Spousal Support Factors
When spousal support is an issue (and it often is), there are three possible issues: first, whether spousal support should be awarded at all; second, if so, then how long should the award of spousal support be expected to continue; and, third, if so, how much spousal support should the recipient spouse expect to receive. When attorneys and judges consider spousal support, and all three of the issues affecting spousal support, they look at the spousal support factors from the statute. In … [Read more...]
