How does the court decide who gets what property and which debt?

Courts try to divide property and debt based upon what is fair and equitable. This is the subject of much argument and litigation. The baseline case for the factors that a court uses to divide property and support is Merrill v. Merrill. These factors are part of the Alaska state law now and are as follows:

Merrill Factors

(A) the length of the marriage and station in life of the parties during the marriage;
(B) the age and health of the parties;
(C) the earning capacity of the parties, including their educational backgrounds, training, employment skills, work experiences, length of absence from the job market, and custodial responsibilities for children during the marriage;
(D) the financial condition of the parties, including the availability and cost of health insurance;
(E) the conduct of the parties, including whether there has been unreasonable depletion of marital assets;
(F) the desirability of awarding the family home, or the right to live in it for a reasonable period of time, to the party who has primary physical custody of children;
(G) the circumstances and necessities of each party; (H) the time and manner of acquisition of the property in question;
(I) the income-producing capacity of the property and the value of the property at the time of division.

Separate Property

It is important to remember that not all property acquired prior to a marriage is separate property. There are times when the court will look to what the parties intended the property to be used for. For example, a man buys a house, lives in it for a couple of years then gets married and his wife lives there too. After a couple of years they sell the house and use the money to buy a new home. In this case, the money from the sale of the home became martial property at the time the new home was purchased. If the husband had taken the money from the sale of the first home and put it into a separate bank account then a good argument can be made that the money from the sale of the first home was separate property.

Marital Debt

Clearly debt acquired during marriage is marital debt and will be divided between the parties. Credit card, Home mortgages car payments and payments on other items are typical of debts that get divided. Premarital debts can be a bit tricky when deciding who is going to assume that debt. Generally, debts incurred after separation our separate debts and are not subject to division. The question often arises about what happens when the wife continues to live in the marital home and the husband, who doesn’t live there, pays the bills and mortgage. Does he get paid back for all that money that he paid during the separation period? This is a technical question that needs to be answered by an attorney.