23 - Calculating Separate Property in a Divorce

In this show, Todd Orston and Leh Meriwether invited Laurie Dyke back onto the show to challenge her on how to calculate marital interests in situations involving separate property.     The show was packed full of great conversation, and more importantly, good information on how to work through tricky situations surrounding a fair division of a parties assets in a divorce when separate property is involved. 

Here is a list of just some of the questions we answered during the show:

• What is the difference between marital and separate property?
• How do you break out the marital portion of a pre-marital retirement account?
• Is there any marital interest in a pre-marital IRA that is worth less at the time of divorce than it was at the time of marriage and if so, how would you calculate it?
• Is there a marital component to stock options that were granted before the marriage and if so, how would you calculate them?
• At what point is a pre-marital piece of real estate convert to marital property?
• If a spouse contributes blood, sweat and tears to a pre-marital home, does that create a marital interest in the property?
• If a husband enters the marriage with a business, how do you calculate the marital interest in the business if the business grows during the marriage?

  Laurie is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Certified in Financial Forensics (CFF) and a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE).  She testifies regularly as an expert witness in Court, but prefers to help lawyers and parties settle their cases by breaking down challenging financial issues in a divorce or similar family law matter.