North Dakota residents who are going through the turbulent time of the end of a marriage and are dealing with a divorce will understand the emotional and personal impact life changes will have. While children, custody and visitation will take precedence, financial matters cannot be ignored. Oftentimes, people will think of spousal support from the perspective of a paying former spouse and a receiving former spouse. Another issue that is financial and could have far-reaching ramifications is property division. Understanding what the law says about property division can help to understand and prepare for how it will affect the case. When there is a divorce, debts will also be divided.
When the couple is granted its divorce, there will be an equitable distribution between the parties. Some property is subject to federal law when there is division and that must be accounted for. The court will determine a date for valuation and this date must be just and equitable. This is the date in which the summons for the action of divorce or separation was made or the date when the couple had its last separation – whichever happened first.
In some cases, a party might be part of the civil service and will therefore be part of that retirement system or another system in which a government pension is provided instead of Social Security. If the other spouse is getting Social Security, the equitable distribution will be subject to computation of the current value of Social Security when compared to the government pension during the time for which the person is covered. This will be subtracted from the government pension’s value to come to the marital portion of the government pension.
Property and debts can be redistributed by the court as part of a post-judgment proceeding if one of the parties has been found to have failed to fully disclose property and debts based on the law or if there is a lack of compliance with a court order for property and debts to be distributed. For people who are divorcing, property and debt cannot be ignored. Having a grasp on these somewhat complicated concepts can help couples reach a fair divorce resolution.