Legal Question in Family Law in Virginia

Re: Division of property in divorce settlement

There are many reported cases on the division of property at the time of a divorce. If the Court decides the division, step one is to define what is separate property and what is marital. Step two is to look a a number of factors to equitable divide marital property. While separate property is defined as that brought into the marriage, it can be transformed, partially or wholly, into marital property by acts during the marriage, such as titling separate property in both names, or having the other party devote significant monetary and non-monetary resources to the maintanance and upkeep of the property. In other words, the answer to your question is, "It depends." I would be happy to discuss this with you in a preliminary way.

Re: Division of property in divorce settlement

That would be up to the judge to determine the equitable division of property(including your house) in the joint marital estate in the event that you could not reach an agreement with your spouse as to how it should be divided.

You should be aware of the fact that merely because your wife did not contributed to the actual mortgage payments on the house during your marriage that that fact alone is enough to disqualify her for any share in the value of this property in the event that it becomes subject to an euitable distribution order of the court.