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Where do you begin with property division?

On Behalf of | Aug 5, 2022 | Blog, Property Division

Texas is a community property state. That means if you and your spouse do not come to an agreement outside of court on how to divide your assets, the court will evenly divide them for you. This may not work for your needs or desires.

The best course of action is to reach an agreement between the two of you on how you will handle the division of property. But that may be easier said than done. Brides explains the best starting point is to make a list of everything you own and then apply a few simple steps to end up with an agreeable division.

Pick out the separate property

Once you have your list, you will want to remove anything that the law considers separate property. These are assets that you or your spouse owned before your marriage and maintained separately during your marriage. Also included in separate property are inheritances and gifts. These items will go to the person who owned them before the marriage.

Discuss the remaining items

The next step is to go over what you have left on the list and discuss who will get what. This is the part where problems are most likely to come up. You will need to negotiate and keep control over your emotions as you work through the list. Be open to hearing your spouse’s ideas and be ready to compromise. It may help if you each develop a list of the assets you want. You can then work from there, setting aside anything you may both want for discussion after you get through dividing everything else.

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