How do you
divide property in a divorce or separate support and maintenance action?
Every client wants to know how the court is going to divide their assets.
Over the course of a marriage, whether it is short or long, couples accumulate
assets and debts. The assets and debts can be real property or personal
property. Land and homes are most often the real property owned by couples.
Personal property is cash, retirement accounts, vehicles, furniture, jewelry,
etc…
The factors for determining how to divide assets and debts is found in
South Carolina Code of Laws 20-3-620 which states:
(A) In a proceeding for divorce a vinculo matrimonii or separate support
and maintenance, or in a proceeding for disposition of property following
a prior decree of dissolution of a marriage by a court which lacked personal
jurisdiction over an absent spouse or which lacked jurisdiction to dispose
of the property, and in other marital litigation between the parties,
the court shall make a final equitable apportionment between the parties
of the parties’ marital property upon request by either party in
the pleadings.
(B) In making apportionment, the court must give weight in such proportion
as it finds appropriate to all of the following factors:
(1) the duration of the marriage together with the ages of the parties
at the time of the marriage and at the time of the divorce or separate
maintenance or other marital action between the parties;
(2) marital misconduct or fault of either or both parties, whether or not
used as a basis for a divorce as such, if the misconduct affects or has
affected the economic circumstances of the parties, or contributed to
the breakup of the marriage; provided, that no evidence of personal conduct
which would otherwise be relevant and material for purposes of this subsection
shall be considered with regard to this subsection if such conduct shall
have taken place subsequent to the happening of the earliest of:
(a) entry of a pendente lite order in a divorce or separate maintenance action;
(b) formal signing of a written property or marital settlement agreement; or
(c) entry of a permanent order of separate maintenance and support or of
a permanent order approving a property or marital settlement agreement
between the parties;
(3) the value of the marital property, whether the property be within or
without the State. The contribution of each spouse to the acquisition,
preservation, depreciation, or appreciation in value of the marital property,
including the contribution of the spouse as homemaker; provided, that
the court shall consider the quality of the contribution as well as its
factual existence;
(4) the income of each spouse, the earning potential of each spouse, and
the opportunity for future acquisition of capital assets;
(5) the health, both physical and emotional, of each spouse;
(6) the need of each spouse or either spouse for additional training or
education in order to achieve that spouses’s income potential;
(7) the nonmarital property of each spouse;
(8) the existence or nonexistence of vested retirement benefits for each
or either spouse;
(9) whether separate maintenance or alimony has been awarded;
(10) the desirability of awarding the family home as part of equitable
distribution or the right to live therein for reasonable periods to the
spouse having custody of any children;
(11) the tax consequences to each or either party as a result of any particular
form of equitable apportionment;
(12) the existence and extent of any support obligations, from a prior
marriage or for any other reason or reasons, of either party;
(13) liens and any other encumbrances upon the marital property, which
themselves must be equitably divided, or upon the separate property of
either of the parties, and any other existing debts incurred by the parties
or either of them during the course of the marriage;
(14) child custody arrangements and obligations at the time of the entry
of the order; and
(15) such other relevant factors as the trial court shall expressly enumerate
in its order.
(C) The court’s order as it affects distribution of marital property
shall be a final order not subject to modification except by appeal or
remand following proper appeal.
Need help with your divorce proceedings?
Call Bluestein Johnson & Burke, LLC today.