in california

we are a community property state which

means that all assets acquired generally

during marriage are community property

and would be divided equally so with a

with respect to something like a bank

account you can divide the balance and

one party takes half of it and the other

party takes the other half of it with a

house or a business it’s

different a house two people can’t live

in the house or usually co-own the house

after they divorce so usually a house

would go to one spouse and not to the

other

and let’s say there’s equity of 500 000

in the house and one spouse gets the

house the other spouse would get

250 000

in the case of a business the court

because uh family law courts or courts

of equity the court has a lot of

discretion what to do with a business so

by way of example the court could award

the business to the

party who was operating the business

before separation

so let’s say you owned a fast food

restaurant

or franchise and there was one party

that operated that business during the

marriage the court normally would say to

that party if you want the business will

give it to you at this value and then

you would owe your spouse x

the court could

say to

the non-operating spouse i’m going to

give you a chance if you want a chance

to get this business you’ll get cash

flow from it

and then you’re going to owe your spouse

half of the value

another situation is the judge could say

both of you will continue to co-own this

business

and you know wife you’ll be the manager

husband you’ll be the non-operating

spouse you’ll be entitled to all the

financial records and you will be

entitled to half of the income

a fourth alternative is the court can

say

sell it

so you sell it to

the

a third party who doesn’t have any skin

in the game as it pertains to the

spouses

and sometimes that’s the best way to

handle it i recently had a situation

where the accountants valued a business

at four million dollars it was a

marketing business my client was the

non-operating spouse and she said i

don’t believe it’s worth four million

dollars

the court ordered it sold and it was

sold to a third party

for in excess of 150 million dollars

so had she accepted that offer she would

not have been very happy to learn that

the business could have sold for many

multiples more than the husband was

offering so sometimes that’s the best

way to divide a business put it on the

market and see what happens