Legal Question in Family Law in Georgia
My husband and I are trying to work out which assets are pre marital assets and which are post marital assets (so we know in a divorce which assets to divide up). Most are straight forward but we are having disagreements about stock options. He had stock options that had not vested and stock options that had vested on the date we were married and some of these he has since sold and some he has not.
I believed that if he sold the stock options, the money obtained from the sale is HIS (whether they were vested or unvested when we married) but any net gain after that point is shared between us. He disagrees and thinks all proceeds from the stock options should be his.
Which of us is right? We live in Georgia.
Also can you clarify the position on retirement funds / IRAs etc. Do we just keep our own if we had them before the marriage? What about growth on these during the marriage.
During the marriage I didnt work much as I was raising kids - do I get a portion of the growth of his IRA from the time we were married?
1 Answer from Attorneys
First of all, you are making an enormous mistake you didn't ask about. No divorce should be handled without you having a lawyer, and a divorce that involves stock options, IRAs, etc is a complex divorce in which a single missed word could cost you many times the cost of an attorney in not getting what you should, or in tax consequences. So stop guessing and get a lawyer for yourself immediately.
As a general rule, any change in value of an asset after marriage is marital property, but it's not always that simple when the asset started as separate property. To correctly analyze your situation I'd need exact numbers and dates and records. But you are wrong in many of your assumptions. When he sold an option during the marriage, depending on how those proceeds were handled, that money may have become marital property. And as for the gain in options during the marriage, his position is dead wrong and you are correct.
The growth in retirement funds is also divisible, but there are significant costs and potential tax pitfalls that may affect how you address this.
Complicating the above is that Georgia uses equitable division, so divisions of marital property may be other than 50-50, and your not working may be the basis for you to get more than half, or to claim alimony.
You NEED a lawyer. Get one immediately. If you are in our area (we cover almost all of metro Atlanta and nearby counties), feel free to call us for help. Even if you are agreeable, having a lawyer will make sure you do things right. There is NO "form" that will begin to address your situation.
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