A quick tip for just about anyone who is going to go through a Rhode Island divorce is to think of your income and what you have used it for.
Why?
The income generated by each spouse in a marriage is a marital asset. What does that mean? It means that it is subject to equitable division by the Rhode Island family court. Your income is also property of your spouse and your spouse's income is also your property until the Rhode Island Family Court Judge decides otherwise or the spouses reach an agreement that the Rhode Island Family Court will approve.
The significance of this is greater than you might imagine. Even if you have separate bank accounts solely in your own name, this does not insulate you or your income from the court's power of equitable distribution. Income earned during the course of a marriage is a marital asset subject to distribution by the court. Additionally, if you take that income and use even a portion of it to sustain, maintain, repair or improve an asset that is arguably non-marital or pre-marital, then you could unknowingly cause a non-marital or pre-marital asset to become an asset subject to the jurisdiction of the Rhode Island Family Court's power of equitable distribution because you have co-mingled a marital asset with a non-marital or pre-marital asset and thereby convert it to a marital asset.
In truth, non-marital and pre-marital assets in the truest sense of the the word are rare because the income of both spouses is considered a marital asset and that income if virtually always co-mingled with everything a divorcing couple has.
Keep in mind before you and your Rhode Island Divorce lawyer examine all your assets and try to identify arguably exempt items that the income of both spouses is part of the marital estate. Comingle that income with an asset outside the family court's power and you may have just brought the irreversibly within the court's power of equitable distribution.
Christopher A. Pearsall, Esquire
70 Dogwood Drive, Suite 304
West Warwick, RI 02893
Call (401) 632-6976 Now for your low-cost consultation.
from
Rhode Island's Most Affordable Divorce & Family Law* Attorney
Copyright 2008. Christopher A. Pearsall, Attorney-at-Law
*The Rhode Island Supreme Court licenses all attorneys in the general practice of law.
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