Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Pennsylvania

I suppose though they'd have to be pretty durable.. The question why after 7 years isn't the divorce final?

{John}

This is classed as a "probate" question. Probate concerns the winding up of affairs of dead people and seeing to the orderly transfer of assets from the dead to the living heirs/beneficiaries.

You have posted a divorce law question and you need a divorce law attorney to answer it. This forum, while useful, is not really designed to substitute for a competent attorney hired to handle your case. You need to hire a divorce attorney. First, as suggested by Attorney Davidson, seven years and no divorce is asking for trouble. If you are no longer with your spouse and have no intention of reconciling, then while you are still alive, file for the divorce now instead of waiting until the first one of you dies and creates a bigger estate mess that will cost money and lawyers to fix.

Divorce law is concerned with the divorce, alimony/support of spouse, child support/custody and division of marital assets. With regard to assets, the divorce court is concerned mostly about marital assets. So their task is to see what you and your spouse own, classify it as being acquired before, after or during marriage, value it and fairly or equitably divide it. Anything acquired after the date of separation may be considered as separate, but it depends on the asset, how it is titled and whether it has gone up or down in value and if both spouses continued to pay for maintenance, taxes, and mortgage. If not, this will all have to be accounted for so as to arrive at an overall equitable distribution. Equitable does not mean 50-50! It can be 70/30, 60/40 or something else depending on the circumstances, which you do not relate.

Whether you can get a portion of your share of the home and household goods depends on a lot of information you do not relate. You may not get the actual items but may be credited with value. With the house, it depends on how it is titled, but if your husband is living there, the court will probably require your husband to buy out the equity value of your share. Again, this is just speculation - I don't have any information about debts and assets and that is why you need to see a family law attorney because there may be some information that I don't have which would change my advice totally.

Such as, was anything acquired by gift or inheritance? If so, its separate. But was it commingled for marital use? If so, it might be marital. A gift of a new dress would be separate but gift of a new washing machine is probably marital. It depends on the particular item. If the item no longer exists because it lived out its useful life, then you will not get it back and may or may not get credit for it in equitable distribution Did you and your spouse either execute a pre-nuptial agreement or some kind of separation agreement? If so, what does it say?

All of these things can change the advice. Please see a local attorney in your area for a consult regarding divorce and division of assets.