Going through a divorce can be difficult, regardless of your circumstances or the complexity of the issues you will need to address at the end of your marriage. If you own a business, you may be worried about what will happen to it during your divorce. You may have built the business from the ground up during your marriage, or it may have been in existence before you got married. In either case, there are several important factors to take into account if you plan to keep ownership of the business after your divorce.
Factors to Consider When Dividing Marital Property
As you look at how ownership of your business will be handled going forward, the first thing to look at is whether your business was acquired during the course of your marriage. If so, then it will typically be considered marital property—meaning that it will be subject to division between you and your spouse during your divorce. Even if you owned your business before getting married, you may need to look at whether it increased in value during your marriage and whether your spouse contributed to this increase. If so, then your spouse may have an ownership claim over a portion of the business.
You may also need to consider a prenuptial agreement made between you and your spouse before getting married, which may have stated that you will continue to be the sole owner of your business in the event of divorce. If your business was founded or acquired during your marriage, a postnuptial agreement may have been created to detail how ownership of your business will be handled if the marriage dissolves. If you have an agreement in place, this may simplify the property division process and ensure that you and your spouse are clear about who will own the business.
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