Property Division from a Marriage

Under North Carolina law, division of property and assets from a marriage are divided under a set of laws commonly called "Equitable Distribution." In Equitable Distribution, the court is generally interested in the property that the parties acquired during the marriage, prior to separation. This is an extreme simplification of the law. Another over simplification of the law, but from my perspective, a good rule of thumb, is that the parties are each generally entitled to half of whatever it is that was acquired from the date of the marriage to the date of separation, this includes debts which were obtained during the marriage, for the benefit of the marriage.

Years ago, when I first started practicing (back in 1995), there were not as many debts as I am seeing today. Often times today, there are debts that are not secured by anything. This kind of debt is often credit card debt. Sometimes credit card debt, even though acquired during the marriage, is not be a joint debt. An experienced and knowledgeable attorney can help sort this out, possibly to your advantage.

Things that can greatly complicate an equitable distribution case are things like pensions and retirement, and small businesses.

Equitable distribution is not available to persons that have not been married. For persons that have chosen to live together, and obtain property together, there may be other remedies available to split up such property. Here again, an experienced attorney can be very helpful here.

I would like to speak with you to see if I can help.