When we’re talking about the division of assets under New York law, we are talking about the division of assets and debts that were accumulated during the marriage. The New York domestic relations law has an expansive definition of marital property and a less expansive definition of separate property. Separate property might be a bank account that you held prior to the marriage that remained in your name; or you might have used the bank account prior to the marriage to fund the purchase of a marital residence, if that’s the case, you may be entitled to a contribution back. When we look at assets we look at many different components of marital assets; retirement accounts, IRA’s, deferred compensation, real estate, brokerage accounts, life insurance cash value, jewelry, automobiles, vacation homes. All assets that you have accumulated will be analyzed in the course of this process. To undertake that analysis, we’re going to ask you for tax returns, bank account statements and any other documents that tell us what the value of those assets are. When we undertake this process, it is sometimes necessary to hire outside experts. If you or your spouse have a business, we may not be able to determine the value of that asset without hiring an expert and we don’t want to guess as to the value of an asset that is important to the entire makeup of the marital estate. We might need an appraiser to appraise real estate; we might need an estate expert to appraise other personal property assets. We will discuss those issues with you when we go over the list of assets and when we undertake an analysis of just what does constitute your marital estate.
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