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Whether you were married two years or twenty-five, chances are that you and your spouse have accumulated a lot of “stuff” – furniture, rugs, dishes, knick-knacks, pots and pans. When you separate or divorce, that stuff has to be divided. As you might imagine, no judge or hearing officer wants to spend hours hearing about your pots and pans, their value, and who got them. Here are some principles that […]

The Superior Court this week heard the plea of a Vietnam Veteran who argued that the increase in value of his VA benefits, which had been deposited into an investment portfolio prior to marriage, should retain the exempt character of the underlying VA benefits, which may not be divided in equitable distribution. One cannot imagine a fact pattern more perfect than that Goodemote v. Goodemote, 2012 PA Super 94 (May 1, 2012). […]

A recent Superior Court decision, Childress v. Bogosian, 2011 WL 61616 (2011), illustrates the challenge of tracing nonmarital property in divorce. Under Pennsylvania law, the property owned by a spouse prior to marriage, or acquired by gift or inheritance during the marriage, or acquired after separation, is generally nonmarital property if it has not been converted into marital property by re-titling it in joint names. Still, the law creates a […]

A recent decision of the Iowa Court of Appeals illustrates the perils of reliance upon industry rules of thumb to value a business in matrimonial litigation. In Marriage of Hagar (11/24/2010), husband and wife purchased a dry cleaning business from a trust established by husband’s parents as part of a business succession plan. Husband and wife agreed to a $300,000 purchase price that was determined by the companies’ accountant. The trust […]

A thorny issue that arises early in many divorce proceedings is the question of who may live in the marital residence during the separation period. Generally speaking, the courts will not evict either spouse from the marital residence during separation if they are living together peacefully and have not voluntarily moved away. This principle leads some devious spouses to seek questionable or even fraudulent protection from abuse (PFA) orders. Spouses who […]

Divorcing spouses often ask me about credit card debts and loans. While a divorce court may assign responsibility for paying credit card debts and loans that were incurred during the marriage, the court generally lacks jurisdiction over the creditors. In other words, the divorce court cannot force the credit card issuer to collect from one particular spouse if both spouses were cardholders. If both spouses’ names are on the credit […]