When you’re in the process of divorcing, it feels like there are a million things that all require your attention. It’s an emotionally and financially challenging time for everyone involved.
An important consideration is how you protect your assets. When you and your ex-spouse have built a property portfolio between you throughout your marriage, you need to know what will happen to it. If you have one or more rental properties, do you need to sell up or can one party keep them?
Here’s what the law in Tennessee says about it.
Parties are free to make the decision themselves
In Tennessee, ex-spouses are welcome to come to an agreement themselves about how they divide their jointly-owned property during a divorce. This can either be jointly deciding to sell or splitting the properties between themselves. This will then be documented in a Marriage Dissolution Agreement and there’s no need for judicial involvement.
Property is divided equitably in Tennessee
If both parties cannot agree on how to split their properties, they can ask the court to intervene. Marital property in Tennessee is to be divided equitably. This doesn’t mean that it’s split equally, instead the court has to make a decision based on what is considered fair. This will take into account a number of factors such as the length of the marriage and how much money each party earns.
Firstly, it’s important to note that the only property the court will consider is jointly-owned property. Whether property is separately or jointly owned will be decided by a process of classification if the parties do not agree.
Once the court has a list of all the properties in question, the next thing to do is a valuation before the court makes its decision. The properties can either be sold and the sale proceeds split among parties or the properties can simply be divided.
Protecting your rights when divorcing can be complex, especially when there’s a lot at stake. The process can be made so much easier when you have the right support in place.
