1. Home
  2.  » 
  3. property & debt division
  4.  » Overview of how property division works in Georgia

Experienced Legal Guidance Delivered With A Personal Approach

Overview of how property division works in Georgia

On Behalf of | Oct 12, 2018 | property & debt division

Like most of the other states, Georgia is what is called an equitable division state when it comes to splitting property, and debts, between spouses who are divorcing or going through a formal separation process.

What this means is that, unless the couple agrees to a fair property division, a Georgia judge is going to first determine what assets, and debts, are part of the marital estate. Generally speaking, if a couple has been married any length of time, most of their property is going to be considered part of the marital estate.

Marital property includes assets, including income, that the couple obtained during their marriage, and may even include things that were brought in to a marriage by one or party but was later mixed in with marital property that it is hard to separate.

Once the judge determines what is marital property, she must then divide it fairly based on the facts and circumstances. While splitting the property down the middle may be a good starting point and may even be the fairest result in many cases, the judge will actually consider a number of factors when dividing it.

These factors include the financial condition of each spouse both before and after the divorce, as well as whether either party tried to get an unfair advantage in the process.

While this hopefully gives Carrollton residents some idea of how property and debt division would work, it actually can involve a lot of complicated questions which couples are likely to disagree over. For this reason, having an experienced family law attorney help with the property and debt division process is often a good idea.