A major part of every divorce is division of assets. Separate assets may include money, property or possessions that each spouse owned before the marriage. Marital assets include any kind of property, including monetary, that was acquired during the marriage. Often, one spouse alleges that the other spouse has wasted marital assets.

What Is Community Waste?

Wanton “community waste” may involve squandering jointly held property including money, vehicles or other assets. Examples of accusations of community waste of marital assets are as follows:

• To purchase illegal drugs
• For excessive gambling
• To hire prostitutes
• Spent on travel, entertainment or gifts for a boyfriend or girlfriend in an extramarital affair

A husband or wife may assert that, “It’s my money because it is income from my job,” when in fact, earnings of either spouse become marital property and must be taken into account in division of property in a divorce.

If You Believe Waste Has Occurred, We’ll Help You Explore Your Options

Lasiter & Jackson is your law firm in an Arizona divorce, our attorneys can help you investigate and document community waste of marital assets. We can help you petition the divorce court to offset these material losses when calculating equitable distribution of property.

In other words, if your husband squandered $10,000 unfairly (whether he spent it outright or incurred this amount of debt) he may be required in the divorce settlement to compensate you with $5,000 worth of some type of property. If your wife regularly gambled away $2,000, she should be accountable to offset the divorce settlement with $1,000 in your favor.

Choose a Family Law Firm With Experience Handling Complex Cases

Lasiter & Jackson welcomes you to schedule a consultation in our law offices in Phoenix. Community waste? Attorney Stephanie Jackson and attorney Nicole Lasiter can help you prove allegations of community waste by your spouse — or defend yourself against allegations of community waste if you are the one accused of squandering marital assets.

We aim to provide our clients with understanding and compassion regarding delicate issues associated with property division and debt division. We are committed to helping protect our clients’ best interests in all phases and aspects of complex divorce settlement negotiations. We offer qualified case assessment at a reasonable cost to discuss your concerns regarding community waste.

Contact our law office in Phoenix to discuss your divorce or other family law issues with an experienced and knowledgeable lawyer.