Minnesota is not a fifty-fifty state when it comes to property division during a divorce. In fact, most courts would not perform a simple half-and-half split. Even community-property states — that being the alternative system to Minnesota’s — often have somewhat complicated rules to deal with the division of assets.
In Minnesota, the court decide how to divide marital property based on the rule of equitable division. This system should allow you to make more customized, specific decisions on how to distribute the property you and your spouse both own. However, this also means that you may have more work to do if you want to reach a fair divorce agreement.
One of the other complications involved with property division is the way the court views different assets. The categorization of assets and debts is one of the first concerns when thinking about how to split up a marital estate. After all, you would probably not want to divide assets that you owned entirely.
As explained on FindLaw, there are two main types of property recognized by Minnesota divorce courts. These are marital property, meaning assets that you might have to divide with your spouse, and separate property, meaning assets that you could probably keep. There is also a third, hybrid category of comingled assets that could be pertinent to your case.
Additionally, you may need to divide some of the financial obligations you have accrued during your marriage. Minnesota treats debts in a similar way to assets, with the three categories of separate, marital and co-mingled debts considered.
Property division is one of the more complicated issues in divorce. Each case is different, so please get specific legal advice. This is only intended as general information.