What is Property?
All that you own can basically be divided into two types of property in Tennessee: real and personal. Real property includes land and home that you own. Personal property is almost everything else. Everything that you own, both real and personal property can be referred to as your marital estate.
When you are going through a divorce, the general rule is that everything is split evenly between the divorcing spouses. This is because the court will presume that both parties shared equally in the building of the marital estate. Please note that Tennessee is an equitable division state and thus, a court may not spit things exactly even, but more equitably based on the facts of the marriage. However, the following are some of the general rules that may be followed in dividing the marital estate:
General Rules
Take the asset, you take the debt. As an example, if you take the furniture that you still owe $500.00 on, you are going to also be responsible for that debt.
What was yours stays yours. As an attorney in the world of domestic relations law, there is the concept of separate property. Separate property is, generally, everything that you came into the marriage with and/or that was not purchased with marital assets. As a general rule, separate property stays with the party that brought it into the marriage and does not form any part of the marital estate. Some examples of separate property are: most gifts that you receive during the marriage, property that you brought into the marriage, and any inheritances.
Unless you change it. Just because something started out as separate property does not mean that it stays that way. An individual can convert separate property into property of the marital estate in a number of ways. You can do this by virtue of commingling and appreciation. An example of appreciation is typically found with houses. A house that is brought into the marriage is considered separate property. However, if the other spouse lived in that house, or can show that he or she has expended marital assets to cause the house to appreciate in value or somehow contributed to the appreciation of the property by keeping up the house, that appreciation becomes marital property. An example of commingling typically occurs with banking accounts. When you inherit cash and put that cash into a joint bank account, you have just commingled those funds as you two use the account. If there is no way to separate the marital property from the separate property, it is usually all considered marital property. (Please note that homes are a bad example as the home you live in, becomes a type of joint property of your spouse by virtue of the marriage. This is an entirely different set of laws specific to Tennessee, Memphis and Shelby County. It usually won't matter whose name is on the title!)
