By: Valerie E.\nAnias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No<\/strong>.\u00a0 Maryland is not a Community Property state.\u00a0 This is a question I am often asked by new clients.\u00a0 If client\u2019s don\u2019t ask, they often assume that Maryland is a Community Property state and are disappointed when they learn that\u2019s not the case.\u00a0 Community Property means that any property that is owned by spouses is marital property.\u00a0 For divorcing couples in Community Property states, any property that either spouse owned prior to their marriage or property acquired after the separation would not be considered marital.\u00a0 Additionally, all Community Property is split evenly, 50\/50, between the spouses.\u00a0 In Maryland, this is not true.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Maryland is an\nEquitable Distribution state. In an\nEquitable Distribution state, all property (with very few and narrow exceptions)\nacquired during the marriage is marital property, regardless of who paid for\nit. Additionally, property that is\nnon-marital can easily become marital depending on how it is treated. In other words, any property may be\nconsidered marital property. Yes, that\nincludes the house you purchased 5 years before you got married. Yes, that includes an inheritance you\nreceived during the marriage and put into your joint account. Yes, that includes the new car you bought\nafter you separated. Yes, yes, yes. Finally, in an Equitable Distribution state,\nproperty needs to be divided fairly and fairly does not mean equally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, Jamie\nand Taylor Smith bought a home after they were married and upon their divorce\nit has approximately $100,000.00 in equity. \nIn addition, Jamie bought a new car after separating from Taylor. In a Community Property state, each party\nwould receive $50,000.00 of the home but Jamie\u2019s car would not be marital\nbecause it was purchased after their separation and therefore, Jamie would keep\nthe car. In Maryland, both the house and\nthe car would be marital because it was acquired during the marriage. How that property is divided would be\ndependent upon the circumstances. \nPerhaps Taylor earns $30,000.00 per year and Jamie earns $250,000.00 per\nyear. The Court may be inclined to give\nTaylor $75,000.00 of the equity in the home and the car and leave Jamie with\n$25,000.00 of the equity of the property. \nWhatever the division, the Court is only concerned with having an\nequitable, or fair, division not an equal division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Understanding what is and is not marital property is important.\u00a0 It is even more important to understand how to keep non-marital property from becoming marital property.\u00a0 One easy way to do this is to enter into a Prenuptial or Postnuptial Agreement. Any agreement should be drafted by a qualified attorney to ensure you are receiving the protections necessary to effectuate your goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By: Valerie E. Anias. No.\u00a0 Maryland is not a Community Property state.\u00a0 This is a question I am often asked by new clients.\u00a0 If client\u2019s don\u2019t ask, they often assume that Maryland is a Community Property state and are disappointed when they learn that\u2019s not the case.\u00a0 Community Property means that any property that isRead More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[715,716,36,735,734,634,11,270,736,737,12,741,742,740,161,738,13,211,41,68,708,69,636,15,739],"class_list":{"0":"post-1158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-annapolis-family-law-attorney","9":"tag-annapolis-family-law-lawyer","10":"tag-children","11":"tag-community-property","12":"tag-division-of-assets","13":"tag-division-of-property","14":"tag-divorce","15":"tag-divorced-family","16":"tag-equitable-distribution","17":"tag-fair-not-equal","18":"tag-family-law","19":"tag-family-law-divorce","20":"tag-family-law-lawyers","21":"tag-family-law-separation","22":"tag-marital-award","23":"tag-marital-home","24":"tag-marital-property","25":"tag-non-marital-property","26":"tag-parents","27":"tag-postnuptial","28":"tag-postnuptial-agreement","29":"tag-prenuptial","30":"tag-prenuptial-agreement","31":"tag-separation","32":"tag-spouses","33":"entry"},"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1160,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions\/1160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}