Ending Your Marriage

In California, you are able to terminate your marriage for whatever reason you want. Since California is a no-fault state, a spouse can end the marriage at any time for any reason and get the same they would get if the other spouse ended the relationship. There are three ways to terminate your marriage: (1) divorce, (2) legal separation, and (3) nullity.

Divorce:
In order to get divorced, you must have lived in California for six months and in a county for three months. Once the Petition is filed and served, you will have to wait at least six months for your divorce to be finalized.

Legal Separation:
A legal separation ends the legal obligations of a marriage, though the title still exists. Many people file for legal separation, because they want to end the legal obligation to their spouse, but may not want to be divorced. There is no residency requirements, so a legal separation can be turned into a divorce, once the residency requirements are met.

Nullity:
A nullity is a legal order that the marriage never actually existed. This could be because of incurable insanity, an undisclosed inability to have sex, fraud, or a few other reasons. Nullities are difficult to get and are therefore rarely a real option.

Community Property

Community property is property acquired during the marriage that is not separate property.

Separate Property

Separate property is property acquired before marriage and after the date of separation. Property acquired during marriage can be separate property if it is a gift, an inheritance, or the spouses agree that it will be the separate property of one of the spouses.

What You're Entitled to

California is a community property state. This means that each spouse is entitled to exactly one-half of the value of all property, debt, and wealth acquired during the marriage. For example, if a married couple acquires $200,000 in property, but $100,000 in debt, they would each receive $50,000 worth of property. From the $200,000, $100,000 would go to pay off the debt, leaving $100,000 for the parties to split. Each of them would get exactly one-half of the $100.000, meaning $50,000 each. Not all property acquired during marriage is community property. If the property is a gift, inheritance, property purchased from property received before the marriage, or property received after the couple separates.

What About the House?

All real property received during marriage that does not fall into an exception is community property. If the couple have a single house, a number of things could happen: (1) it could be sold, (2) one spouse could get it to offset community property the other spouse received of equal value, or (3) one spouse buys the interest the other party has in the property. For example, a marital couple owns a house worth $300,000, but they owe $100,000 to the bank for the mortgage, leaving $200,000 in value for them to split. One spouse could pay the other $100,000, to cover what they would receive from the house. Selling is typically not the best option as the couple will lose money in the sale and any repairs that are needed before the house is sold.

What About the Business?

Businesses are considered community property as well. The business could be split the same ways the house could, the most important issues are making sure the business is valued properly and that the community receives the right amount from the business. There are a number of ways to value a business, so an experienced lawyer is usually needed to get the right resources to get an accurate financial picture of the business. After the business is valued, the community could receive interest two different ways. Either one spouse will get to keep it and the other spouse would be entitled to half; or, the court will just calculate how much the spouse would get paid as an employee in the same type of company and pay the community that amount. Either way, it is important that you have a skilled attorney prepared to argue the method that is in your best interest.

What About the Retirement?

Each spouse is entitled to one-half of the retirement earned during the marriage, even if the spouse started the job prior to the marriage. If retirement is earned before or after the marriage starts or ends, then the other spouse would get a percentage of the retirement less than half of the retirement.