Last time we wrote how it can be a financially challenging time to get a divorce and go through property division in Colorado. Over the last two posts we wrote about how homes have become liabilities instead of assets in some divorce cases and we also wrote about how couples can approach retirement accounts during the division of assets. In this post we will talk about how divorcing couples can share the risk of the current economy.

Just like the economy has affected house prices, the economy has also affected other investments. The weak economy has shaken the stock market repeatedly and because of the general financial uncertainty that has occurred over the last few years traditional property division schemes between spouses have been turned upside down.

According to a leading family law practitioner based in New York, high-earning spouses are more apt to share the risk than they have been before. In preceding years, high-earning spouses preferred that the other spouse take the house and other safe, low-yield assets while they took investments with the potential for high growth and risk like stock options, growth funds and their own businesses.

Today the traditional scheme to divide assets is less common especially when the divorcing couple has children. High-earning spouses are no longer quite as convinced that their risky assets will produce and have therefore asked to split the risky and safer assets. The threat of instability is also forcing spouses to ask how a loss of income could impact their alimony and child support duties.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, "Divorce: Who wants the house?" Kelly Greene, Oct.1, 2011