September 2, 2025 • 32 mins
Navigating the complex landscape of property division during a Texas divorce requires understanding the fundamental distinction between community and separate property. In this episode, attorneys Alex Hunt and David Teasdale from Hunt Law Firm cut through the confusion surrounding Texas property laws to provide clarity on what belongs to whom when marriages end.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome back to the Texas Family Lawyer Podcast.
My name is Alex Hunt, I'm theManaging Attorney at Hunt Law
Firm and I'm joined today byAttorney at Hunt Law Firm, david
Teasdale.
Welcome, hi.
Happy to be here.
So today, david and I are goingto discuss a little bit about
community property versusseparate property and we're
going to give a bit of a rundownof some of the things we talk
(00:32):
about in our initialconsultations with clients.
But it's incredibly importantto know the difference between
community property and separateproperty, especially in Texas.
Texas is a community propertystate.
We're going to get into whatthat means.
Other states are not and let'sjust dig right in.
(00:52):
David tell us a little bitabout community property versus
separate property.
What is community property?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Community property is anything acquired during the
marriage.
So this is going to be you getmarried, you bought marriage or
during the marriage youinherited something or you were
(01:28):
gifted something.
Those are your separateproperties.
Now a court is not going to.
A court is only going to dividethe community assets.
So things you acquire, thosespouses acquired during the
marriage.
A court is not going to divideseparate assets.
So it's really important toknow what is community property
versus what is separate property, because that can affect the
(01:48):
overall division.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
And for clients that we have that are more visual
learners, like I am, I like toenvision it as having three
buckets.
So you've got this bigcommunity property asset bucket
and it doesn't matter if thehusband is the breadwinner, the
wife is a breadwinner, both ofthem are breadwinners.
It doesn't matter whose name ison the bank account, it doesn't
(02:11):
matter whose name is on thecheck that's coming in.
If they've got money that iscoming in as income into that
estate, it's going into thismiddle bucket that's called
community property.
And then each of the spouseswill have their own separate
property bucket and thatseparate property bucket is
going to hold, like youmentioned, any gifts, even if
(02:34):
it's a gift from the otherspouse.
So you know that engagementring that the wife got when they
were getting married.
That's a gift.
They're getting that, or theygot some sort of Christmas gift,
or their parents gave them agift.
If it's a gift, it's going intotheir separate property,
depending on which spouse it is.
(02:56):
And then there are some otherones like inheritances, like you
mentioned, personal injurysettlements.
That's one that is not typical,but sometimes you'll have
personal injury settlements andsometimes it can get a little
bit difficult because if you say, you get a gift from somebody
(03:17):
that can start.
You know, maybe you put thatinto a bank account that's mixed
in with your income and that'swhere it can get a little bit
jumbled and that's where theproperty is what we call mixed
character.
So tell me a little bit aboutwhat is the process then.
What do we need to do if you'vegot a divorce case and you've
got a bank account that's got alittle bit of separate property,
(03:40):
gift money, you've got a littlebit of income in there, you've
got a little bit of inheritancein there, is it all just loss
and it's all just communityproperty, or is this something
we can do?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
There's something we can do Now.
The starting point for anyjudge is it's community property
.
If you're trying to say thatyou have a commingled account,
that your separate property wasput in, but now there's
community property in there,it's your burden to prove that
it is separate property.
It is mixed character, and howmuch is that your separate
(04:12):
property?
What we do in those situationsis really bank statements.
You have to prove it by what'scalled clear and convincing
evidence.
So you need to show the judge.
At the date of marriage, thiswas what the account was.
Since then, every monthlystatement.
This is what we have today, andthat can be really difficult
(04:34):
because these financialinstitutions, these banks, don't
always keep years worth ofstatements.
I think we go back five toseven years, depending on the
bank.
So if you're dealing with a10-year marriage, a 15-year
marriage, it can be verydifficult to go back that far.
So I would encourage people togo ahead and start collecting
bank statements now, in case youjust don't know if you have
(04:58):
separate property, especially ifyou have money you owned prior
to the marriage or yourinheritance, and you put your
family money into a jointchecking account or into a
checking account that you hadother assets in there.
It's really important that weshow the court that that is your
separate property, and the onlyway to do that is through
tracing and bank statements.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
And that tracing process often happens in
coordination with a forensicaccountant and you think about
you're already paying a lawyer,your spouse is already paying a
lawyer for a divorce, and nowyou've injected another
professional into the mix that'sgoing to charge you potentially
thousands of dollars to do this, what we call tracing.
(05:38):
They're literally tracing wherethe money went from the
inheritance or the giftthroughout that account.
And when they trace it theyneed to have a clear chain.
Every month they need to showso that no money went in, no
money went out.
And, as you talked about thatburden, there's a presumption
(05:59):
that everything that a husbandand wife owned is community
property.
Clear and convincing evidenceis not typically a burden that
we deal with.
We usually deal withpreponderance of the evidence,
which is 50.1 percent morelikely than not, and clear and
convincing evidence is a prettyhigh burden.
(06:20):
It's just a notch below beyonda reasonable doubt, which is the
highest burden that you canhave.
That's using criminal standard.
So there really is a presumptionthat something's going to be
community property and you'vegot to have your T's crossed and
your I's dotted to make sureyou can get a separate property
claim established.
So that's why, as you mentioned, incredibly important, save
(06:43):
your bank statements.
I know people aren't savingtheir bank statements, thinking,
well, I might get divorced in10 years, right, but just good
record keeping is going to helpyou establish that an
inheritance or a gift,especially of a large amount, is
going to be documented.
It should something happen andyou get divorced, did it, should
(07:09):
something happen and you getdivorced.
So it's important to figure outhow to get that evidence.
That's something that we helpour clients with.
What type of evidence wouldsomebody need to establish a
separate property claim in adivorce case?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
It depends on the asset.
So if we're dealing with ahouse, that one's pretty
straightforward.
We're going to go to the realproperty records, we're going to
get the warranty deed.
It's going to show when thehouse was transferred into that
spouse's name.
When you're dealing withretirement, the question is, was
that 401k started before themarriage or after the marriage?
If it was before the marriage,then part of it is going to be
(07:44):
separate property and part of itis going to be community
property.
If you're dealing with, like wesaid, checking accounts,
brokerage accounts, any of thoseassets, the monthly statements
are key.
You have to show the court thatyou can't just go to court and
say I had $100,000 in mychecking account.
(08:05):
I mean, you can testify to that, but you got to show the judge
the proof.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
And if it's very complex, it's possible that the
court is not going to accept youjust taking the bank statements
and explaining it yourself.
They're going to expect aprofessional.
Remember the lawyers in thesecases.
You know we deal with thisstuff all the time, so we have,
you know, we have someexperience dealing with
financial records and we knowhow to make our way around them,
(08:32):
but we are not accountants andjudges are just family lawyers
that have been elected to thebench or appointed to the bench,
and so they don't have any typeof specialized accounting
knowledge themselves and they'regoing to depend on the
professionals in order to showthem that something can be
established by clear andconvincing evidence.
(08:53):
So let's talk a little bitabout how we would then take all
of that evidence to prove aseparate property claim and
build an inventory.
What is an inventory?
Because that's something thatfolks that are involved in a
divorce where there's propertyissues are going to hear a lot.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, it's required in every divorce case.
An inventory is where we take alist of all your assets,
everything you own with anyfinancial institution checking
account, savings account,brokerage, retirement IRAs, life
insurance policies, realproperty, vehicles.
We just put a list of all ofyour assets on a spreadsheet,
(09:34):
basically, and we're going toswear under, you're going to
swear under oath that this iseverything that you know that
you have, and it's going to listall your liabilities as well.
Your spouse is going to do thesame thing.
We're going to have backup tosupport every value, whether we
need an appraisal, whether weneed a current statement.
We're going to have backupattached to that.
It's going to be filed with thecourt.
We're going to exchange it,give it to the other side.
(09:56):
They're going to give us ours,it's theirs, it's required and
then, at trial, we're going towalk you through your testimony
of this.
I own this, I own this, I ownthis.
This is the community property,these are the liabilities, but
this is my separate property, ifyou have any of those, and then
that's when we may need theexperts to come in and walk them
through the individual,separate property that we're
(10:19):
trying to claim.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And I can't stress the importance of the sworn
aspect of an inventory more,because folks will come to us
and they'll say I think that myhusband, I think that my wife
might be hiding something, andyour inventory is your first
line of defense to make surethat they're going to expose
(10:42):
something that maybe they'rehiding.
The reason why is an inventoryhas language that they are
swearing under penalty ofperjury, that everything that is
in that list of assets anddebts is accurate and complete.
Now people still lie when theysign something under penalty of
perjury.
So it's our first line ofdefense.
On our last line of defense, wecan still request bank records.
(11:08):
We review those.
We see if there are anyaccounts that we don't have
statements for, we ask for those.
We then will subpoenaadditional documents directly
from the bank or from theinstitution.
There's a lot of stuff we can dothere, but the inventory, their
employer, the inventory is thestarting point, and we use it
(11:31):
quite often when we're trying tonegotiate a final settlement,
because in the end, when you aredividing your property, you are
simply figuring out what assetsand what debts are going to
which party, and so you've gotthis spreadsheet of all the
assets and the debts and thenyou will literally have a column
(11:51):
that says community property tospouse number one.
Community property to spousenumber two separate property
spouse number one.
Community property to spousenumber two.
Separate property spouse numberone.
Separate property spouse numbertwo.
And if you're living in thehouse, you want to keep the
house, then that will go intoyour column for purposes of
negotiation and then you have tomake up the value of that
(12:14):
somewhere else so you don't havea completely lopsided final
agreement.
And especially in mediation,especially in the final trial,
if you're unable to reach anagreement, that's going to guide
the discussion of what aproperty division is going to
(12:34):
look like.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Right, a lot of my.
There's a misconception.
I see this all the time with.
A lot of my clients are inconsults.
People just say you know, isshe going to get half my
retirement or are we going tojust divide everything in half?
And no, that's not what we'regoing to do.
Like you said, we're going toyou can, but we usually that
would be so burdensome right Toliterally divide every checking
(12:57):
account in half.
What we typically do is we lookat the bottom line of the
community portion.
We're going to put, like yousaid, alex, if you're going to
get the house, we'll put that inyour column and if there's a
mortgage, we'll put that in yourcolumn.
And then we're going to awardeverything that's in their names
to themselves and see what thebottom line is.
And see what the bottom line isIf it's typically, if we're
(13:17):
trying to get close to a 50-50,there are factors that in
negotiations that would maybeone spouse may need more of the
estate than the other, buttypically 50-50 is a good
starting point.
We're going to, once we assignevery asset that each spouse may
take, we look at the bottomline and see how far apart we
are and then we can use like oneof the larger assets.
(13:38):
It's normally the house, theequity in the home, or it's
normally a retirement toequalize the bottom line,
basically.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
And not every case is going to have a 50-50 split,
and so that is another myth thatI think a lot of people think
well, of course we're going todo 50-50.
That's not always the case,however.
Other people will come to usand say you know he cheated or
(14:06):
she, you know, has some sort ofbad fact on her side and so it
should be a 75-25 split.
25 split and generally, unlessthere are horrendous facts,
courts in Texas, and especiallyaround the greater Houston area,
are not going to skew thedivision that much.
(14:29):
The only time and there havebeen a handful of times where I
have gotten an extraordinarilylarge division, I have gotten
cases where it has been 70 to80% for my client, where there
has been really egregious thingsthat have happened, like
massively wasting money,spending things on things that
(14:50):
the other spouse didn't consentto and that were just a total
waste, inappropriate gifts, yeah, and those are things that we
can certainly look into and thatcould skew it, but really the
only thing that the court isrequired to do is a just and
right division, and so that'sthe gray area where family
(15:10):
lawyers, you know, earn our fee.
Is just and right.
What does that mean?
It can mean anything to anybodyis just in right.
What does that mean?
It can mean anything to anybodyRight.
And so that's where we do ourwork to show the judge whether
something is in fact just inright for our client and for the
other side.
So if the judge is taking kindof 50-50 as a starting point,
(15:33):
what does it look like?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
What needs to happen in order for the judge to say
maybe I'm going to go 55-45?
Name calling it has to bepretty intense, though Always
belittling putting down there'sa lot that goes into cruel
treatment.
But if you get thosefault-based, the court could on
those grounds award adisproportionate division on its
own.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
And that is something that you need to know at the
outset that you're going for.
You need to let the other sideknow I'm going for a
disproportionate share of thecommunity estate, and so let's
go down each of those factors.
Fault based factors Somebodydid something wrong in the
divorce and they're the reasonthat it's going to be 55, 45, 60
(16:32):
, 40.
The first one would be grounds,and so typically we see most
divorces granted on the basis ofinsupportability, which is
people might have seen on TV orin other states irreconcilable
difference, prize, no fault.
Yeah, that just we grew apart.
There's no fault.
We're not going to get backtogether.
(16:53):
It is what it is, no fault.
Back together, it is what it is, no fault.
But there are fault-basedgrounds, one of which is
adultery, one of which iscruelty.
Tell me a little bit aboutthose two.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
So with adultery, you need to show that an affair has
happened, that there's been asexual relationship with someone
outside the marriage.
You didn't consent to it, youdidn't, you know or anything
like that.
You need to prove to the judgethat this person has stepped
outside of the marriage andcheated on you.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
What about Facebook messaging somebody and talking
with them?
Would that count?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
No, it doesn't.
Now you and I would agreethat's probably not okay, right,
but is that adultery underTexas law?
No, it's not.
You need to show the sexualrelationship.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah, emotional affairs, while certainly not
great, don't qualify as adulteryin a Texas court.
Tell me a little bit aboutcruelty, because, again, that is
this kind of amorphous termthat can have a lot of different
meanings to different people.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
It just basically means that you are so
insufferable that the personcan't live with you anymore that
you really treated them likethey're garbage and that means
that's a different threshold fora lot of people.
So it is a very fact intensivequestion.
But it's again what I saidearlier name calling, belittling
, arguing but more than arguing,just screaming at each other,
(18:21):
shouting All of those comes intoplay.
Just because you had anargument and you all shouted at
each other doesn't mean it'scruel treatment, but given one
case, it could be.
It's just a very fact-intensequestion.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, and it's really tough to get absent any type of
severe emotional abuse orfamily violence.
Yes, you know if, if there'sphysical violence against the
children or the spouse, thatwould most likely qualify to at
least be considered as crueltyyelling at each other.
A lot of times when people aregetting divorced there's going
(18:56):
to be some yelling at some pointin the process, and so if that
were the criteria, theneverybody would have a cruelty
ground.
But the other thing to consideris that a lot of times I would
say probably 80 to 90% of time acase is going to be resolved in
mediation and if there is amediated agreement or negotiated
(19:17):
agreement, 99% of the time timethere's going to be an
agreement.
We're going to do a non-faultground because you can have the
same property settlement.
But most people don't want tohave in a public record that
they were adulterous or thatthey were cruel.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
That doesn't make any sense, Right?
Especially if we're having twopeople come to an agreement.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
That doesn't make any sense right, especially if
we're having two people come toan agreement.
Yeah, so let's talk about,because I think this is likely a
bigger area where people aregoing to seek a disproportionate
share.
Those were the fault-basedgrounds, these are the
need-based grounds, and thefirst one is income and earning
capacity of the spouses Right.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Tell me a bit about that.
So maybe you're dealing with Idon't know a situation where you
have a stay-at-home mom who'staking care of the kids the
entire time and they're in thetraditional roles.
The husband has been the breadearner throughout the marriage
and he has made the income andshe has stayed home and raised
the kids.
Now, if they all are getting adivorce, she doesn't have any
(20:21):
job prospects really.
She's been out of the workforcefor 20 years and he's continued
to be in the workforce.
Now they agreed to those roles,but that is a huge income
disparity there.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, certainly.
And say you've got a $500,000estate and one party is looking
to do 250-250, the judge mightsay I'm going to make it, you
know, maybe 275, 225 or 300, 200, because one of the spouses
simply doesn't have the trainingand the ability to go and make
(20:56):
what the other spouse is making,especially if they're making a
really good salary, and so itcompensates for the fact that
they're going to be able to moveon from this divorce and make
up for whatever they're losingfrom their checking account or
their retirement fairly quickly.
The other person is not.
And so it is not going to meanthat the judge is going to give
(21:17):
you 100 percent of everything.
For some of my clients, I wishthat were the case, because they
need it, but that's just notthe way Texas law is set up.
In a similar vein, educationand training would be another
need-based ground.
The judge is going to look atwho has the ability to
immediately go and make a largerincome.
(21:38):
If one party has a JD they're alawyer and one party has a high
school education and noapplicable training where they
can go and get a job right away.
They might look at that.
The court might also look at ifone spouse is going through a
job training program and theyknow that they'll be able to get
(21:58):
a good job with a good salaryin the future, but they need six
months.
Maybe the judge will accountfor that a little bit and say
let's get them through this nextsix months by having a little
bit more of a disproportionateshare.
The next one this is the thirdone the age and health of the
spouses.
Tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Well, so say so.
Y'all are nearing retirementage and you're not going to have
a job, or probably you're aboutto retire.
The court can consider that individing an estate.
What if one of the spouses isdisabled?
There are other mechanisms thatwe're not going to get into
here, like Texas's version ofalimony spousal maintenance.
That may be appropriate, butwhen dividing an estate, a court
(22:40):
can look at is a spouse has adisability?
Are they able to work?
In dividing an estate, a courtcan look at is a spouse?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
has a disability, are they able to work in dividing
an estate, does have adisability, or they are a little
bit older and they don't havethe ability to meet their
minimum reasonable needs, whichis the criteria under Texas law
(23:09):
then the court could order theother spouse to pay them a
certain amount of money everymonth for a certain limited
period of time, unless thedisability is such that that
person's never going to be ableto work again, in which case the
judge could order for a longerperiod.
But that is a possibility andthat is a way that that person
can make sure that they can makeends meet.
(23:33):
But for purposes of today we'rejust talking about community
and separate property.
But that is a possibility andsomething that your lawyer
should discuss.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah, and the court can also just consider not to
award the spouse on.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
just give them more of the estate, more of the
Justin Ray vision and I havefound that to be the case Most
of the time.
Judges, if you have a largeestate if you have, say, a $2
million estate there is enoughmoney there that somebody is
good Could it would be the judgeis going to give you a little
bit more money versus having theother person pay you a monthly
(24:07):
amount nearly every time.
Um, which, if I'm the lawyerfor the person that needs that
extra money, I'm going to takethat all day because I would
rather have the money up frontfor my client and know that
they're going to get it, versusevery month.
You're wondering if your exspouse is going to put the check
in the mail to pay you Right,and that's when we also meet
with, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
certified divorce financial analysts to figure out
which assets we need to goafter in the just and right.
Maybe, if you have a spouse whoisn't working, maybe we need to
go for more liquidity versusretirement assets that they're
not going to be able to touchfor years without taking a huge
penalty.
So those are things that wediscuss with our clients
regularly.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
So the next need-based factor would be the
benefits that would have beenderived from the marriage had it
continued.
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Really, I believe that that means that.
So if the marriage hadcontinued maybe you have.
So if the marriage hadcontinued, maybe your spouse has
access to specific benefits, ormaybe there's a reason that if
you had stayed together, youwould have gotten something.
You would be staying in themarriage and this thing would
(25:20):
have continued.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Maybe you would have gotten health insurance
continued.
Maybe you owned a businesstogether and now you're missing
out on the income from thatbusiness because you have given
the business to the other person.
So if you had stayed married,you probably would have gotten
certain benefits.
You're not getting them now.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
The court can consider that the court can
consider that and giving youmore of the estate.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Yes.
The next one is businessopportunities.
We talked about that, and thenthere's a number of other
factors.
The next one is businessopportunities.
We talked about that, and thenthere's a number of other
factors.
The last one that we're goingto talk about today is the size
of the separate property awardthat you got.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
So the court can consider if you're, if the
community estate is five hundredthousand dollars and you're
sitting on an inheritance of amillion dollars, you know your
family literally left you thefarm A court can consider that
in dividing the estate becausethe court can't divide the farm,
it can't divide the separateproperty, it's going to confirm
(26:13):
that as your separate property.
So you're walking away with aone million dollar asset and the
other spouse and then you'realso getting half of the
community.
So it doesn't always happen,but a court does have the
authority to look at thisparty's separate property when
dividing the community estate.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
And so disproportionate share is one
thing that can affect thetypical property division.
We would be remiss if we didn'ttalk about two other things
that can affect it.
The first one is a premaritalagreement.
The second one is a premaritalagreement.
The second one is a postmaritalagreement.
Tell me folks might have heardprenup prenuptial agreement,
(26:51):
premarital agreement.
Tell me a bit about how thatcan affect the outcome.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, it can greatly affect the outcome.
So in our premarital agreementsand our postmarital agreements
they're called partition orexchange agreements.
You're contracting to changeTexas law.
Basically You're entering intoa contract with your spouse or a
future spouse in a premaritalagreement to say we understand
Texas law is a communityproperty state, but in this
(27:19):
prenup we're going to say thereis no community property,
everything is separate property.
If I have the house in my name,that's going to be my separate
property.
If we have any accounts orretirements in my name, that's
going to be my separate property.
A court can't divide that.
So you have to be very carefulwhen entering into these
(27:41):
agreements.
Talk with your lawyer.
We will sit down with you andgo over and help draft these
things for you.
But these things can heavilyaffect Texas law and a judge.
If it's a valid premaritalagreement, the judge is going to
follow that contract and not ifyou said no community property,
it's only separate property.
Typically the starting pointfor our courts is everything's
(28:03):
community property.
But you have a valid prenuptialagreement or post-marital
agreement, the judge is going todivide the estate the way you
told you contracted to bedivided.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
And a premarital agreement would come before the
marriage.
I completely agree with youthat you should consult with a
lawyer when you're eitherdrafting it or you're
considering signing it.
And just to give an example ofone of the ways it can change,
texas law is say, for example,you've got a bank, you've got a
brokerage account, you've gotstocks that are worth about
(28:35):
$100,000.
And that's your separateproperty because you owned it
before the marriage.
If you got paid dividends onthat, those would typically be
income, which would then becommunity property.
And it can make it kind ofdifficult to divide it up
because then you've got thismixed character asset and you've
(28:57):
got commingled communityproperty and separate property
in one account and you've got togo get a forensic accountant
and all that.
But a good premarital agreementcan say any dividends, any
income, is going to be separateproperty.
It really simplifies matters.
The other thing you can do isyou can say specific accounts
and you could say these are myaccounts, this is my business,
(29:18):
this is my house, this is goingto remain my separate property,
no matter what happens in ourmarriage.
And then that post-maritalagreement essentially does the
same thing, but it's just afteryou're married and you can
change what the defaultprovisions would be.
Sometimes we see people dopost-marital agreements where
there's just a change incircumstances in terms of
(29:40):
business asset or something likethat.
Sometimes people will go downthe road of divorce.
They decide they want to staytogether.
They've gotten kind of far inthe divorce process and then
they say, look, we're going totry this out, we're going to try
to make this work.
But in the event that we can'twork it out, let's work out the
details of what our divorce isgoing to look like property-wise
(30:03):
now and put it in an agreementand sign off on it.
And then, if it ends up notworking out, we don't have to go
through the hassle and thefinancial costs and the drama of
going through the divorceprocess again.
It just simplifies things.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
You can be married and not worry about the what-ifs
.
You've already taken care of it.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah, married and not worry about the what ifs,
because you've already takencare of it.
Yeah, and so it's important tonote this is just for Texas
community property versusseparate property.
Other states, particularlythose in the Northeast, have a
different way of doing things.
They're not community propertystates.
A lot of the southern andwestern states are community
property states and have asimilar setup.
Southern and western states arecommunity property states and
(30:46):
have a similar setup.
But it's important to know thesedifferences and these nuances
because the decisions that youmake while you're married, like
the record keeping, and you knowif you get an inheritance, I
tell people put that in aseparate account.
Don't put that into your jointaccount.
You never know what's going tohappen in the future.
Keep it in a separate account,don't put any community property
in there.
Just protect yourself for thefuture.
But understanding a little bitabout this community property
(31:08):
versus separate property is thatcan help people both during the
divorce process and even before, because they might make
different decisions Right,absolutely Well, david, thank
you so much for helping toexplain this very important
topic and if you wanted to do aconsultation with myself or with
David, you can come visit us ateither our Katie office,
(31:29):
cypress, sugar Land or LeagueCity at Hunt Law Firm.
You can find us atfamilylawyerkatiecom, and at
familylawyerkatiecom we not onlyhave information on how to get
in touch with us, but also a lotof resources, including
articles and resources oncommunity versus separate
property and just propertydivision in general.
(31:50):
You can also call our office at832-315-5494.
Thanks again, david.
Thanks for having me All right.
Until next time, everybody you.
Welcome back to the Texas Family Lawyer Podcast.
My name is Alex Hunt, I'm theManaging Attorney at Hunt Law
Firm and I'm joined today byAttorney at Hunt Law Firm, david
Teasdale.
Welcome, hi.
Happy to be here.
So today, david and I are goingto discuss a little bit about
community property versusseparate property and we're
going to give a bit of a rundownof some of the things we talk
(00:32):
about in our initialconsultations with clients.
But it's incredibly importantto know the difference between
community property and separateproperty, especially in Texas.
Texas is a community propertystate.
We're going to get into whatthat means.
Other states are not and let'sjust dig right in.
(00:52):
David tell us a little bitabout community property versus
separate property.
What is community property?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Community property is anything acquired during the
marriage.
So this is going to be you getmarried, you bought marriage or
during the marriage youinherited something or you were
(01:28):
gifted something.
Those are your separateproperties.
Now a court is not going to.
A court is only going to dividethe community assets.
So things you acquire, thosespouses acquired during the
marriage.
A court is not going to divideseparate assets.
So it's really important toknow what is community property
versus what is separate property, because that can affect the
(01:48):
overall division.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
And for clients that we have that are more visual
learners, like I am, I like toenvision it as having three
buckets.
So you've got this bigcommunity property asset bucket
and it doesn't matter if thehusband is the breadwinner, the
wife is a breadwinner, both ofthem are breadwinners.
It doesn't matter whose name ison the bank account, it doesn't
(02:11):
matter whose name is on thecheck that's coming in.
If they've got money that iscoming in as income into that
estate, it's going into thismiddle bucket that's called
community property.
And then each of the spouseswill have their own separate
property bucket and thatseparate property bucket is
going to hold, like youmentioned, any gifts, even if
(02:34):
it's a gift from the otherspouse.
So you know that engagementring that the wife got when they
were getting married.
That's a gift.
They're getting that, or theygot some sort of Christmas gift,
or their parents gave them agift.
If it's a gift, it's going intotheir separate property,
depending on which spouse it is.
(02:56):
And then there are some otherones like inheritances, like you
mentioned, personal injurysettlements.
That's one that is not typical,but sometimes you'll have
personal injury settlements andsometimes it can get a little
bit difficult because if you say, you get a gift from somebody
(03:17):
that can start.
You know, maybe you put thatinto a bank account that's mixed
in with your income and that'swhere it can get a little bit
jumbled and that's where theproperty is what we call mixed
character.
So tell me a little bit aboutwhat is the process then.
What do we need to do if you'vegot a divorce case and you've
got a bank account that's got alittle bit of separate property,
(03:40):
gift money, you've got a littlebit of income in there, you've
got a little bit of inheritancein there, is it all just loss
and it's all just communityproperty, or is this something
we can do?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
There's something we can do Now.
The starting point for anyjudge is it's community property
.
If you're trying to say thatyou have a commingled account,
that your separate property wasput in, but now there's
community property in there,it's your burden to prove that
it is separate property.
It is mixed character, and howmuch is that your separate
(04:12):
property?
What we do in those situationsis really bank statements.
You have to prove it by what'scalled clear and convincing
evidence.
So you need to show the judge.
At the date of marriage, thiswas what the account was.
Since then, every monthlystatement.
This is what we have today, andthat can be really difficult
(04:34):
because these financialinstitutions, these banks, don't
always keep years worth ofstatements.
I think we go back five toseven years, depending on the
bank.
So if you're dealing with a10-year marriage, a 15-year
marriage, it can be verydifficult to go back that far.
So I would encourage people togo ahead and start collecting
bank statements now, in case youjust don't know if you have
(04:58):
separate property, especially ifyou have money you owned prior
to the marriage or yourinheritance, and you put your
family money into a jointchecking account or into a
checking account that you hadother assets in there.
It's really important that weshow the court that that is your
separate property, and the onlyway to do that is through
tracing and bank statements.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
And that tracing process often happens in
coordination with a forensicaccountant and you think about
you're already paying a lawyer,your spouse is already paying a
lawyer for a divorce, and nowyou've injected another
professional into the mix that'sgoing to charge you potentially
thousands of dollars to do this, what we call tracing.
(05:38):
They're literally tracing wherethe money went from the
inheritance or the giftthroughout that account.
And when they trace it theyneed to have a clear chain.
Every month they need to showso that no money went in, no
money went out.
And, as you talked about thatburden, there's a presumption
(05:59):
that everything that a husbandand wife owned is community
property.
Clear and convincing evidenceis not typically a burden that
we deal with.
We usually deal withpreponderance of the evidence,
which is 50.1 percent morelikely than not, and clear and
convincing evidence is a prettyhigh burden.
(06:20):
It's just a notch below beyonda reasonable doubt, which is the
highest burden that you canhave.
That's using criminal standard.
So there really is a presumptionthat something's going to be
community property and you'vegot to have your T's crossed and
your I's dotted to make sureyou can get a separate property
claim established.
So that's why, as you mentioned, incredibly important, save
(06:43):
your bank statements.
I know people aren't savingtheir bank statements, thinking,
well, I might get divorced in10 years, right, but just good
record keeping is going to helpyou establish that an
inheritance or a gift,especially of a large amount, is
going to be documented.
It should something happen andyou get divorced, did it, should
(07:09):
something happen and you getdivorced.
So it's important to figure outhow to get that evidence.
That's something that we helpour clients with.
What type of evidence wouldsomebody need to establish a
separate property claim in adivorce case?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
It depends on the asset.
So if we're dealing with ahouse, that one's pretty
straightforward.
We're going to go to the realproperty records, we're going to
get the warranty deed.
It's going to show when thehouse was transferred into that
spouse's name.
When you're dealing withretirement, the question is, was
that 401k started before themarriage or after the marriage?
If it was before the marriage,then part of it is going to be
(07:44):
separate property and part of itis going to be community
property.
If you're dealing with, like wesaid, checking accounts,
brokerage accounts, any of thoseassets, the monthly statements
are key.
You have to show the court thatyou can't just go to court and
say I had $100,000 in mychecking account.
(08:05):
I mean, you can testify to that, but you got to show the judge
the proof.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
And if it's very complex, it's possible that the
court is not going to accept youjust taking the bank statements
and explaining it yourself.
They're going to expect aprofessional.
Remember the lawyers in thesecases.
You know we deal with thisstuff all the time, so we have,
you know, we have someexperience dealing with
financial records and we knowhow to make our way around them,
(08:32):
but we are not accountants andjudges are just family lawyers
that have been elected to thebench or appointed to the bench,
and so they don't have any typeof specialized accounting
knowledge themselves and they'regoing to depend on the
professionals in order to showthem that something can be
established by clear andconvincing evidence.
(08:53):
So let's talk a little bitabout how we would then take all
of that evidence to prove aseparate property claim and
build an inventory.
What is an inventory?
Because that's something thatfolks that are involved in a
divorce where there's propertyissues are going to hear a lot.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, it's required in every divorce case.
An inventory is where we take alist of all your assets,
everything you own with anyfinancial institution checking
account, savings account,brokerage, retirement IRAs, life
insurance policies, realproperty, vehicles.
We just put a list of all ofyour assets on a spreadsheet,
(09:34):
basically, and we're going toswear under, you're going to
swear under oath that this iseverything that you know that
you have, and it's going to listall your liabilities as well.
Your spouse is going to do thesame thing.
We're going to have backup tosupport every value, whether we
need an appraisal, whether weneed a current statement.
We're going to have backupattached to that.
It's going to be filed with thecourt.
We're going to exchange it,give it to the other side.
(09:56):
They're going to give us ours,it's theirs, it's required and
then, at trial, we're going towalk you through your testimony
of this.
I own this, I own this, I ownthis.
This is the community property,these are the liabilities, but
this is my separate property, ifyou have any of those, and then
that's when we may need theexperts to come in and walk them
through the individual,separate property that we're
(10:19):
trying to claim.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And I can't stress the importance of the sworn
aspect of an inventory more,because folks will come to us
and they'll say I think that myhusband, I think that my wife
might be hiding something, andyour inventory is your first
line of defense to make surethat they're going to expose
(10:42):
something that maybe they'rehiding.
The reason why is an inventoryhas language that they are
swearing under penalty ofperjury, that everything that is
in that list of assets anddebts is accurate and complete.
Now people still lie when theysign something under penalty of
perjury.
So it's our first line ofdefense.
On our last line of defense, wecan still request bank records.
(11:08):
We review those.
We see if there are anyaccounts that we don't have
statements for, we ask for those.
We then will subpoenaadditional documents directly
from the bank or from theinstitution.
There's a lot of stuff we can dothere, but the inventory, their
employer, the inventory is thestarting point, and we use it
(11:31):
quite often when we're trying tonegotiate a final settlement,
because in the end, when you aredividing your property, you are
simply figuring out what assetsand what debts are going to
which party, and so you've gotthis spreadsheet of all the
assets and the debts and thenyou will literally have a column
(11:51):
that says community property tospouse number one.
Community property to spousenumber two separate property
spouse number one.
Community property to spousenumber two.
Separate property spouse numberone.
Separate property spouse numbertwo.
And if you're living in thehouse, you want to keep the
house, then that will go intoyour column for purposes of
negotiation and then you have tomake up the value of that
(12:14):
somewhere else so you don't havea completely lopsided final
agreement.
And especially in mediation,especially in the final trial,
if you're unable to reach anagreement, that's going to guide
the discussion of what aproperty division is going to
(12:34):
look like.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Right, a lot of my.
There's a misconception.
I see this all the time with.
A lot of my clients are inconsults.
People just say you know, isshe going to get half my
retirement or are we going tojust divide everything in half?
And no, that's not what we'regoing to do.
Like you said, we're going toyou can, but we usually that
would be so burdensome right Toliterally divide every checking
(12:57):
account in half.
What we typically do is we lookat the bottom line of the
community portion.
We're going to put, like yousaid, alex, if you're going to
get the house, we'll put that inyour column and if there's a
mortgage, we'll put that in yourcolumn.
And then we're going to awardeverything that's in their names
to themselves and see what thebottom line is.
And see what the bottom line isIf it's typically, if we're
(13:17):
trying to get close to a 50-50,there are factors that in
negotiations that would maybeone spouse may need more of the
estate than the other, buttypically 50-50 is a good
starting point.
We're going to, once we assignevery asset that each spouse may
take, we look at the bottomline and see how far apart we
are and then we can use like oneof the larger assets.
(13:38):
It's normally the house, theequity in the home, or it's
normally a retirement toequalize the bottom line,
basically.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
And not every case is going to have a 50-50 split,
and so that is another myth thatI think a lot of people think
well, of course we're going todo 50-50.
That's not always the case,however.
Other people will come to usand say you know he cheated or
(14:06):
she, you know, has some sort ofbad fact on her side and so it
should be a 75-25 split.
25 split and generally, unlessthere are horrendous facts,
courts in Texas, and especiallyaround the greater Houston area,
are not going to skew thedivision that much.
(14:29):
The only time and there havebeen a handful of times where I
have gotten an extraordinarilylarge division, I have gotten
cases where it has been 70 to80% for my client, where there
has been really egregious thingsthat have happened, like
massively wasting money,spending things on things that
(14:50):
the other spouse didn't consentto and that were just a total
waste, inappropriate gifts, yeah, and those are things that we
can certainly look into and thatcould skew it, but really the
only thing that the court isrequired to do is a just and
right division, and so that'sthe gray area where family
(15:10):
lawyers, you know, earn our fee.
Is just and right.
What does that mean?
It can mean anything to anybodyis just in right.
What does that mean?
It can mean anything to anybodyRight.
And so that's where we do ourwork to show the judge whether
something is in fact just inright for our client and for the
other side.
So if the judge is taking kindof 50-50 as a starting point,
(15:33):
what does it look like?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
What needs to happen in order for the judge to say
maybe I'm going to go 55-45?
Name calling it has to bepretty intense, though Always
belittling putting down there'sa lot that goes into cruel
treatment.
But if you get thosefault-based, the court could on
those grounds award adisproportionate division on its
own.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
And that is something that you need to know at the
outset that you're going for.
You need to let the other sideknow I'm going for a
disproportionate share of thecommunity estate, and so let's
go down each of those factors.
Fault based factors Somebodydid something wrong in the
divorce and they're the reasonthat it's going to be 55, 45, 60
(16:32):
, 40.
The first one would be grounds,and so typically we see most
divorces granted on the basis ofinsupportability, which is
people might have seen on TV orin other states irreconcilable
difference, prize, no fault.
Yeah, that just we grew apart.
There's no fault.
We're not going to get backtogether.
(16:53):
It is what it is, no fault.
Back together, it is what it is, no fault.
But there are fault-basedgrounds, one of which is
adultery, one of which iscruelty.
Tell me a little bit aboutthose two.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
So with adultery, you need to show that an affair has
happened, that there's been asexual relationship with someone
outside the marriage.
You didn't consent to it, youdidn't, you know or anything
like that.
You need to prove to the judgethat this person has stepped
outside of the marriage andcheated on you.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
What about Facebook messaging somebody and talking
with them?
Would that count?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
No, it doesn't.
Now you and I would agreethat's probably not okay, right,
but is that adultery underTexas law?
No, it's not.
You need to show the sexualrelationship.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah, emotional affairs, while certainly not
great, don't qualify as adulteryin a Texas court.
Tell me a little bit aboutcruelty, because, again, that is
this kind of amorphous termthat can have a lot of different
meanings to different people.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
It just basically means that you are so
insufferable that the personcan't live with you anymore that
you really treated them likethey're garbage and that means
that's a different threshold fora lot of people.
So it is a very fact intensivequestion.
But it's again what I saidearlier name calling, belittling
, arguing but more than arguing,just screaming at each other,
(18:21):
shouting All of those comes intoplay.
Just because you had anargument and you all shouted at
each other doesn't mean it'scruel treatment, but given one
case, it could be.
It's just a very fact-intensequestion.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, and it's really tough to get absent any type of
severe emotional abuse orfamily violence.
Yes, you know if, if there'sphysical violence against the
children or the spouse, thatwould most likely qualify to at
least be considered as crueltyyelling at each other.
A lot of times when people aregetting divorced there's going
(18:56):
to be some yelling at some pointin the process, and so if that
were the criteria, theneverybody would have a cruelty
ground.
But the other thing to consideris that a lot of times I would
say probably 80 to 90% of time acase is going to be resolved in
mediation and if there is amediated agreement or negotiated
(19:17):
agreement, 99% of the time timethere's going to be an
agreement.
We're going to do a non-faultground because you can have the
same property settlement.
But most people don't want tohave in a public record that
they were adulterous or thatthey were cruel.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
That doesn't make any sense, Right?
Especially if we're having twopeople come to an agreement.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
That doesn't make any sense right, especially if
we're having two people come toan agreement.
Yeah, so let's talk about,because I think this is likely a
bigger area where people aregoing to seek a disproportionate
share.
Those were the fault-basedgrounds, these are the
need-based grounds, and thefirst one is income and earning
capacity of the spouses Right.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Tell me a bit about that.
So maybe you're dealing with Idon't know a situation where you
have a stay-at-home mom who'staking care of the kids the
entire time and they're in thetraditional roles.
The husband has been the breadearner throughout the marriage
and he has made the income andshe has stayed home and raised
the kids.
Now, if they all are getting adivorce, she doesn't have any
(20:21):
job prospects really.
She's been out of the workforcefor 20 years and he's continued
to be in the workforce.
Now they agreed to those roles,but that is a huge income
disparity there.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, certainly.
And say you've got a $500,000estate and one party is looking
to do 250-250, the judge mightsay I'm going to make it, you
know, maybe 275, 225 or 300, 200, because one of the spouses
simply doesn't have the trainingand the ability to go and make
(20:56):
what the other spouse is making,especially if they're making a
really good salary, and so itcompensates for the fact that
they're going to be able to moveon from this divorce and make
up for whatever they're losingfrom their checking account or
their retirement fairly quickly.
The other person is not.
And so it is not going to meanthat the judge is going to give
(21:17):
you 100 percent of everything.
For some of my clients, I wishthat were the case, because they
need it, but that's just notthe way Texas law is set up.
In a similar vein, educationand training would be another
need-based ground.
The judge is going to look atwho has the ability to
immediately go and make a largerincome.
(21:38):
If one party has a JD they're alawyer and one party has a high
school education and noapplicable training where they
can go and get a job right away.
They might look at that.
The court might also look at ifone spouse is going through a
job training program and theyknow that they'll be able to get
(21:58):
a good job with a good salaryin the future, but they need six
months.
Maybe the judge will accountfor that a little bit and say
let's get them through this nextsix months by having a little
bit more of a disproportionateshare.
The next one this is the thirdone the age and health of the
spouses.
Tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Well, so say so.
Y'all are nearing retirementage and you're not going to have
a job, or probably you're aboutto retire.
The court can consider that individing an estate.
What if one of the spouses isdisabled?
There are other mechanisms thatwe're not going to get into
here, like Texas's version ofalimony spousal maintenance.
That may be appropriate, butwhen dividing an estate, a court
(22:40):
can look at is a spouse has adisability?
Are they able to work?
In dividing an estate, a courtcan look at is a spouse?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
has a disability, are they able to work in dividing
an estate, does have adisability, or they are a little
bit older and they don't havethe ability to meet their
minimum reasonable needs, whichis the criteria under Texas law
(23:09):
then the court could order theother spouse to pay them a
certain amount of money everymonth for a certain limited
period of time, unless thedisability is such that that
person's never going to be ableto work again, in which case the
judge could order for a longerperiod.
But that is a possibility andthat is a way that that person
can make sure that they can makeends meet.
(23:33):
But for purposes of today we'rejust talking about community
and separate property.
But that is a possibility andsomething that your lawyer
should discuss.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah, and the court can also just consider not to
award the spouse on.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
just give them more of the estate, more of the
Justin Ray vision and I havefound that to be the case Most
of the time.
Judges, if you have a largeestate if you have, say, a $2
million estate there is enoughmoney there that somebody is
good Could it would be the judgeis going to give you a little
bit more money versus having theother person pay you a monthly
(24:07):
amount nearly every time.
Um, which, if I'm the lawyerfor the person that needs that
extra money, I'm going to takethat all day because I would
rather have the money up frontfor my client and know that
they're going to get it, versusevery month.
You're wondering if your exspouse is going to put the check
in the mail to pay you Right,and that's when we also meet
with, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
certified divorce financial analysts to figure out
which assets we need to goafter in the just and right.
Maybe, if you have a spouse whoisn't working, maybe we need to
go for more liquidity versusretirement assets that they're
not going to be able to touchfor years without taking a huge
penalty.
So those are things that wediscuss with our clients
regularly.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
So the next need-based factor would be the
benefits that would have beenderived from the marriage had it
continued.
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Really, I believe that that means that.
So if the marriage hadcontinued maybe you have.
So if the marriage hadcontinued, maybe your spouse has
access to specific benefits, ormaybe there's a reason that if
you had stayed together, youwould have gotten something.
You would be staying in themarriage and this thing would
(25:20):
have continued.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Maybe you would have gotten health insurance
continued.
Maybe you owned a businesstogether and now you're missing
out on the income from thatbusiness because you have given
the business to the other person.
So if you had stayed married,you probably would have gotten
certain benefits.
You're not getting them now.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
The court can consider that the court can
consider that and giving youmore of the estate.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Yes.
The next one is businessopportunities.
We talked about that, and thenthere's a number of other
factors.
The next one is businessopportunities.
We talked about that, and thenthere's a number of other
factors.
The last one that we're goingto talk about today is the size
of the separate property awardthat you got.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
So the court can consider if you're, if the
community estate is five hundredthousand dollars and you're
sitting on an inheritance of amillion dollars, you know your
family literally left you thefarm A court can consider that
in dividing the estate becausethe court can't divide the farm,
it can't divide the separateproperty, it's going to confirm
(26:13):
that as your separate property.
So you're walking away with aone million dollar asset and the
other spouse and then you'realso getting half of the
community.
So it doesn't always happen,but a court does have the
authority to look at thisparty's separate property when
dividing the community estate.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
And so disproportionate share is one
thing that can affect thetypical property division.
We would be remiss if we didn'ttalk about two other things
that can affect it.
The first one is a premaritalagreement.
The second one is a premaritalagreement.
The second one is a postmaritalagreement.
Tell me folks might have heardprenup prenuptial agreement,
(26:51):
premarital agreement.
Tell me a bit about how thatcan affect the outcome.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, it can greatly affect the outcome.
So in our premarital agreementsand our postmarital agreements
they're called partition orexchange agreements.
You're contracting to changeTexas law.
Basically You're entering intoa contract with your spouse or a
future spouse in a premaritalagreement to say we understand
Texas law is a communityproperty state, but in this
(27:19):
prenup we're going to say thereis no community property,
everything is separate property.
If I have the house in my name,that's going to be my separate
property.
If we have any accounts orretirements in my name, that's
going to be my separate property.
A court can't divide that.
So you have to be very carefulwhen entering into these
(27:41):
agreements.
Talk with your lawyer.
We will sit down with you andgo over and help draft these
things for you.
But these things can heavilyaffect Texas law and a judge.
If it's a valid premaritalagreement, the judge is going to
follow that contract and not ifyou said no community property,
it's only separate property.
Typically the starting pointfor our courts is everything's
(28:03):
community property.
But you have a valid prenuptialagreement or post-marital
agreement, the judge is going todivide the estate the way you
told you contracted to bedivided.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
And a premarital agreement would come before the
marriage.
I completely agree with youthat you should consult with a
lawyer when you're eitherdrafting it or you're
considering signing it.
And just to give an example ofone of the ways it can change,
texas law is say, for example,you've got a bank, you've got a
brokerage account, you've gotstocks that are worth about
(28:35):
$100,000.
And that's your separateproperty because you owned it
before the marriage.
If you got paid dividends onthat, those would typically be
income, which would then becommunity property.
And it can make it kind ofdifficult to divide it up
because then you've got thismixed character asset and you've
(28:57):
got commingled communityproperty and separate property
in one account and you've got togo get a forensic accountant
and all that.
But a good premarital agreementcan say any dividends, any
income, is going to be separateproperty.
It really simplifies matters.
The other thing you can do isyou can say specific accounts
and you could say these are myaccounts, this is my business,
(29:18):
this is my house, this is goingto remain my separate property,
no matter what happens in ourmarriage.
And then that post-maritalagreement essentially does the
same thing, but it's just afteryou're married and you can
change what the defaultprovisions would be.
Sometimes we see people dopost-marital agreements where
there's just a change incircumstances in terms of
(29:40):
business asset or something likethat.
Sometimes people will go downthe road of divorce.
They decide they want to staytogether.
They've gotten kind of far inthe divorce process and then
they say, look, we're going totry this out, we're going to try
to make this work.
But in the event that we can'twork it out, let's work out the
details of what our divorce isgoing to look like property-wise
(30:03):
now and put it in an agreementand sign off on it.
And then, if it ends up notworking out, we don't have to go
through the hassle and thefinancial costs and the drama of
going through the divorceprocess again.
It just simplifies things.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
You can be married and not worry about the what-ifs
.
You've already taken care of it.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah, married and not worry about the what ifs,
because you've already takencare of it.
Yeah, and so it's important tonote this is just for Texas
community property versusseparate property.
Other states, particularlythose in the Northeast, have a
different way of doing things.
They're not community propertystates.
A lot of the southern andwestern states are community
property states and have asimilar setup.
Southern and western states arecommunity property states and
(30:46):
have a similar setup.
But it's important to know thesedifferences and these nuances
because the decisions that youmake while you're married, like
the record keeping, and you knowif you get an inheritance, I
tell people put that in aseparate account.
Don't put that into your jointaccount.
You never know what's going tohappen in the future.
Keep it in a separate account,don't put any community property
in there.
Just protect yourself for thefuture.
But understanding a little bitabout this community property
(31:08):
versus separate property is thatcan help people both during the
divorce process and even before, because they might make
different decisions Right,absolutely Well, david, thank
you so much for helping toexplain this very important
topic and if you wanted to do aconsultation with myself or with
David, you can come visit us ateither our Katie office,
(31:29):
cypress, sugar Land or LeagueCity at Hunt Law Firm.
You can find us atfamilylawyerkatiecom, and at
familylawyerkatiecom we not onlyhave information on how to get
in touch with us, but also a lotof resources, including
articles and resources oncommunity versus separate
property and just propertydivision in general.
(31:50):
You can also call our office at832-315-5494.
Thanks again, david.
Thanks for having me All right.
Until next time, everybody you.
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