Houston Divorce and Family Law Blog

Divorce is hard at any time of life, but the outlook you have on your divorce often depends on when you are divorcing. For example, spouses who are nearing retirement or who have retired will likely be more concerned about retirement pay, healthcare, reverse mortgages and other financial issues.

Below are a few of the things you should consider when filing for Texas divorce later in life.

Retirement plans

Dividing pension plans and retirement funds is different from dividing other property during a divorce. While these funds are typically treated as marital property, there are separate processes for dividing them. For example, dividing a 401(k) falls under federal law - ERISA - while dividing an IRA falls under state law.

Contentious divorces between celebrities are constantly in the news, with spouses battling over child custody, alimony and property division. "Who gets what?" seems to be the prevailing question posed by the media, which paints every celebrity divorce as an ugly contest between spouses. Yet, just like other divorces, many celebrity divorces are handled outside of the courtroom, in settlement conferences and alternative dispute resolution settings.

Divorce is inherently emotional - you are going through a major life change - but it does not have to be a battle. There are ways to keep your Texas divorce out of the adversarial court process and to work with your spouse to make decisions that fit your unique situations.

In fact, our law firm strives to keep most divorces out of the courtroom. While some divorces are best handled in front of a judge (such as divorces where there is unequal bargaining power or evidence of domestic abuse), most divorcing couples can benefit from alternative dispute resolution (ADR).

Dividing your tangible property - such as your house, cars and furniture - is difficult enough without having to worry about intangible property. Unexercised stock options, for example, can be difficult to value and divide during a Texas divorce.

Stock options are contracts to purchase stock for a specific amount of money per share. In the past, companies gave employees stock options as bonuses and as incentives for star employees to continue working with them.

Generally, vested stock options can be divided during divorce. Vested options are those stock options that are not subject to forfeiture by the employee unless the time runs out on them. Most states also allow for the division of non-vested stock options during divorce.

In a previous blog entry, we discussed ways to find hidden assets during a divorce. Yet, how do you know if your husband or wife is hiding assets from you?

Hiding assets may seem like an uncommon scheme; however, especially in high-asset divorces, it happens more frequently than you would expect. And unfortunately, spouses are often too afraid or embarrassed to accuse their spouses of hiding assets. This fear leads to the other spouse getting exactly what he or she wants: a larger piece of the property division pie.