Divorce

The judge will look at these factors when deciding what is a fair (equitable) division of your marital property:

1. duration of the marriage- how long you and your spouse were married;
2. assets and liabilities- the financial situation of both spouses, including what each owns and owes;
3. family home- whether the parent who has custody of the children should get ownership of the family home, or just the right to live in it temporarily;
4. liquidity of the property- how easily the property can be converted into cash;
5. economic desirability of keeping an asset whole- whether it makes sense financially to keep certain assets or investments whole (intact) rather than splitting them;
6. tax consequences- how dividing the property affects each spouse’s taxes;
7. costs of sale- how much it costs to sell the property if that needs to happen in order to divide it fairly;
8. separation agreement- how you and your spouse agreed to divide the property in a separation agreement, if there was one;
9. retirement benefits- your and your spouse’s retirement accounts or pensions; the judge will only look at Social Security benefits if it’s relevant to dividing a public pension;
10. financial misconduct- whether either spouse wasted (dissipated), destroyed, hid (concealed), did not tell (disclose), or fraudulently transferred assets;
11. failure to share required financial information- whether either spouse purposefully did not mention any marital property, separate property, assets, debts, income, and expenses as required during the divorce process; and
12.  other relevant factors- anything else the judge decides is important for fairness.¹

¹ Ohio Rev. Code § 3105.171(F), (E)(4)-(5)