Question #279:My husband and I have been married for 18 years in New York State. We have an 18 years old son together. I moved out of “his” house in November 2009 because of daily excessive arguments and him hitting me on 2 or 3 occasions. We never got a legal separation. I “owned” a condo before we got married. He “owned” his house before he married me. During the marriage, I acquired a house in Atlanta, Georgia and he now owned a house outside the country of his birth Trinidad and Tobago. He now resides in Trinidad and Tobago for most of the year. He comes to NYC in April to get his taxes done and then he leaves the country. Under what grounds can I get a divorce and would we have to sell the properties between us. He is retired and gets a monthly pension.

Any property or assets acquired during the course of the marriage other than by gift, inheritance, or bequeath, is considered “marital property” and is generally divided equally.
Any asset of property owned prior to the marriage and kept in one’s individual name, is separate property, not marital property, and one’s spouse has no proprietary interest in it.
Regarding the properties acquired during the marriage, if the funds used to purchase the properties were earned during the marriage, these properties are marital property. Regarding the pension funds which a spouse receives, to the extent the contributions were made during the course of the marriage, the funds are marital property as well.
If you are living in a New York City metropolitan area, I strongly recommend that you contact me at 212-370-1660 to arrange for a meeting for the three of us to discuss mediating your divorce and making sure that all of the properties that have been acquired during the marriage are distributed fairly and as you both wish.

Leonard M. Weiner, Esq./Divorce Solutions