Legal Question in Family Law in California

I separated from my husband year 2009 since he has a drug addiction. He wasn't able to keep a job because of his addiction. I, on the other hand have been in my job since 1994. We have a daughter who was born 2004. Since our separation, i have never received any support for her. He wanted to get back together but i turned him down and he then filed for a divorce 2019. We are still going through it right now. He wants half of everything. We have a house under our name which he did not contribute, i paid all the mortgage and home association fees. I also have 401K and retirement from my work. Is he entitled to 50% of everything although he did not help out raising our daughter and up to now, he is still on drugs and no helping us financially. He has a long list of criminal records that consists of burglary, writing prescription, violation of probation. He has a lawyer that he hired and his mother paid for it. What is the best strategy in terms of protecting my assets? I tried to just settle with him, but he refuse to do so. I do not understand how can he be entitled to half of the assets since he did not contributed anything with raising our child. He was incarcerated when he filed for divorce. He is still using drugs at this point. If he refused my proposal to just settle, and we do not agree on his demands, can we go just go to trial and what is my chances of winning on keeping assets? If not, what percent is he truly entitled?

is it better to settle or just take a chance of going to trial? Is there a judge that will award him 50%?


Asked on 12/01/21, 8:55 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

California is a community property state. That means everything earned during the marriage and everything paid for with those earnings is jointly owned. Also, money spent on expenses is not taken into consideration, so interest on the mortgage, HOA dues, etc. is money that's just gone, the same as money spent on food and gas. The one thing you have going for you is that the "community" ended when you separated. So any money that you've paid to principle on the mortgage after that you are entitled to get back before any division. Also any savings accumulated after the separation is yours alone. The bad news is you should have gotten support orders a long time ago. You can only get back support credit against the asset division from the date you first apply for child support. In short, you have a really complicated situation due in large part to not getting formal legal proceedings and orders in place a long time ago.

Bottom line: you're going to need a lawyer to sort this out. No way around it.

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Answered on 12/03/21, 4:53 pm


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