marital property is divided
in two categories
there are passive assets
and there are active assets passive
assets are assets that appreciate or
depreciate on their own without effort
by either party so in those
circumstances we’re thinking of
a house
an apartment
an investment account
investment real estate
a car
things that appreciate and depreciate on
their own
that’s divided 50 50 equally between the
parties because the belief is is that no
party should benefit by the increase or
decrease more than the other because
nobody expected any greater effort in
order to get the property to appreciate
in contrast
active assets are things like a small
business or professional practice a
professional practice or small business
has one party who’s the actual doctor or
the lawyer or the business owner and
then you have the spouse who’s making
contributions either directly or
indirectly
we would think of indirect contributions
as being
taking care of the house taking care of
the kids doing things that enable
the
business owner or the
professional
to focus their energies
on maximizing the income potential of
the business or the professional
practice
if it’s an indirect contribution meaning
they have not been involved in the
business you’re looking at a 5 to 25
cut of the appreciation of that business
uh from the date of the marriage to the
date of the divorce action
if however the non-titled spouse
is making direct contributions meaning
that they are working in the business as
secretary
as someone who is putting files away
helping recruit clients doing things
that actually directly contribute to the
value and the appreciation of the
business
they would more likely end up with let’s
say a 25 to 45 percent claim on the
appreciation of the business or
professional practice