A Family Trust May Be Considered Marital Property in Some Cases Is a family trust marital property or separate property in a divorce? Smith v. Smith involves an appeal from a divorce decree, with a claim that the trial court misinterpreted the terms of a family trust and, consequently, improperly allocated certain property between the spouses. Sharon Smith and Keith…
We Fight for All Three
Property Division
What is an Equitable Division of Debts and Property
Getting to an Equitable Division of Debts and Property The court looks to effect an equitable division of property and debts in Utah divorce cases. Issues that need to be resolved in a divorce proceeding may include the division of debt and property. It must be an equitable division. If the parties are unable to agree on how to divide…
Dividing a Personal Injury Award in a Utah Divorce
Dividing a Personal Injury Award Comes Before Determining Alimony How a personal injury award is divided in a Utah divorce action depends on how the award is allocated between medical bills and lost wages and pain and suffering. In a divorce action the court is required to determine how to divide the spouses’ property and whether alimony should be awarded.…
General Principles Regarding Property Division in a Utah Divorce
In the majority of divorces, the parties need to divide personal property they acquired during the marriage. While personal property items are usually resolved without much argument, the occasional case involves highly contested personal property claims. The cases with contentious property claims usually involve high valued assets. Maybe the parties have several vehicles and toys such as boats, motorcycles, expensive…
Guidelines for Utah Courts in Dividing Marital Assets
Often we have clients and potential clients who ask us how their martial and separate property is going to be divided in their Utah divorce action. The simple answer we give them is that all marital property will be divided “equitably,” which means fairly/justly. When it comes down to it though, the Court has broad discretion to divide marital property…