Property Division Attorney in Dallas, Texas

Texas Community Property Laws

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Community property is everything that’s been accumulated during the marriage unless it’s been accumulated by gift or by inheritance. Also, anything that spouse brought into the marriage is their separate property. So at the time of a divorce we look at qualifying what is community versus what is separate. And so oftentimes, it’s difficult to determine. We look at different rules, the inception of title rule is one of them to determine whether or not the asset was started, let’s say a spouse is working during the marriage but they expect a bonus after the divorce. So we look at how much of that bonus was earned during the marriage during the community portion and then, we look at dividing that up. But yes, community property basically mean that the judges will look at each spouse as getting an equal share of the community property but not always there can be disproportionate division depending on the difference in income or earning potential of the spouse. Also, perhaps, based on some fraud or maybe wasting of assets during the marriage. So that’s basically, what community property is.

Dallas, TX family law attorney, Paula Lock Smyth talks about what it means to be a community property state which Texas is.

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