Legal Question in Family Law in Virginia

Re: assets

If husband and wife have a written agreement on assets, that's how they get divided.

If the court has to divide assets, it first decides what is separate property - assets brought into the marriage and kept separate, assets inherited before or during the marriage, assets received as gifts from other than the spouse, assets acquired after the final separation of the parties, and assets resulting from the sale and reinvestment of any of the foregoing. Everything else is "marital property" which the court will divide based on a number of factors; the division need not be equal, though the deviation from equal is usually not more than 10% or 15%.

Pensions are a little more complicated, since they are likely to be part marital and part separate (earned before the marriage and after the separation)and are often not payable until the pensioner retires. In awarding the non-pensioner a portion of the pensioner's retirement assets, the court is limited to an award of not more than 50%.