It’s all in the Pie

In this video I want to talk a little bit about the ‘his’, ‘hers’, and ‘community’ and how all that works together in the realm of divorce. It is a common thing that I hear, “that was his account” and “that’s her account” and they get stuck in this fact that it’s not a community account. Texas is a Community Property state which means that everything that you own at the time of divorce is assumed that it is community, now I’m not going to talk in this video about the difference between community and separate property so for sake of argument let’s say that everything that you own today is in fact community. I want you to get out of the idea of thinking that there’s this ‘his account’ ‘her account’ mentality because it’ll confuse you and it forces people to get stuck in negotiation unnecessarily.

How to Divide the Pie

When you think about community you need to think of it like a pie; it could be any kind of pie that you want, I like apple pie so let’s assume it’s apple pie. Everything that we own is inside this apple pie and when you are negotiating your divorce it doesn’t matter if it’s his account in his name or her name or y’all’s name is on it, it’s all in the pie including all the debts. Everything is in this pie! When you are going through and negotiating things, you’re going to actually each cut out different pieces of the pie. You may have smaller pieces you may have bigger pieces but at the end of the day you’re going to get to a just and right division, now I did not say a 50/50. You have to be really careful because in the state of Texas it is common that there is not an actual 50/50 division, again that a discussion for another video on why that is, but it it’s not always 50/50 so there may be a slight variation. Now, I want to preface that with I have not seen, others might have, but I don’t believe that I’ve seen anything above a 60/40 division, so we are going be close to a 50/50. It’s going to be a ‘just and right’ division but you’re going to each have different pieces of that pie, different sizes, you may have a sliver of this account and a sliver of that account at the end of the day you’re each going to have your portions and you’re going to then have to retitle or transfer things so that everything goes into the proper name at the end of the day.

When you’re thinking about your property division think of everything in the pie, we’re going to put everything in the pie, don’t get stuck on ‘his account’ or ‘her account’ or ‘y’all’s’ account, everything is community. If you have additional questions or want to understand how this impacts your specific situation, give us a call at Next Step Divorce Solutions and we will be happy to explain it more to you. Have a good one!