How Should We Divide Marital Property in Missouri?
Missouri divides marital property equitably, which means in whatever proportions the court considers just after weighing five listed factors.
Equitable is not a synonym for equal. The standard Missouri uses to divide marital property is exactly that, a standard, and the statute deliberately gives no percentage.
That is the single most important thing to understand before you start negotiating, because it means the outcome is argued rather than calculated.
What Does the Statute Actually Say?
One sentence carries the whole framework, and it does two different jobs.
Section 452.330.1 RSMo directs that the court “shall set apart to each spouse such spouse’s nonmarital property and shall divide the marital property and marital debts in such proportions as the court deems just after considering all relevant factors.”
Note that the sentence contains two separate instructions. Nonmarital property is set apart, which is not a division at all. Marital property and marital debts are divided. Getting an asset into the first category is a different argument from getting a favorable share of the second.
What Are the 5 Legal Factors?
The statute lists five, and they are not weighted or ranked.
- Economic circumstances. “The economic circumstances of each spouse at the time the division of property is to become effective, including the desirability of awarding the family home or the right to live therein for reasonable periods to the spouse having custody of any children”
- Contribution. “The contribution of each spouse to the acquisition of the marital property, including the contribution of a spouse as homemaker”
- Nonmarital property. “The value of the nonmarital property set apart to each spouse”
- Conduct. “The conduct of the parties during the marriage”
- Children. “Custodial arrangements for minor children”
Factor two is worth pausing on. Homemaking is named in the statute as a contribution to acquiring property. That is not a courtesy, it is statutory text.
Factor five is worth pausing on for the opposite reason. Custody arrangements feed the property division, which is one of the places where the two halves of a divorce meet. See where the children will live.
Is the Length of Our Marriage One of the Factors?
No, and this is the most common mistake we see repeated online.
Duration of the marriage does not appear anywhere in the list above. It is enumerated in a different statute. Section 452.335.2 RSMo, the maintenance statute, lists ten factors and the sixth is “The duration of the marriage.”
That distinction matters in a real way. A twenty year marriage and a three year marriage are treated differently on maintenance by the express terms of the statute. On the property division, length of marriage matters only insofar as it shows up inside one of the five factors, usually through economic circumstances or contribution. There is also no two year threshold anywhere in Chapter 452 RSMo, despite how often one gets quoted.
Our page on the difference between maintenance, alimony and spousal support covers that side.
So Is It Usually Close to Half?
We are not going to tell you what a Missouri court will do, and any page that does is guessing on your behalf.
The statute names five factors and no percentage. A lawyer who has practiced in these courts can tell you how similar cases have resolved and what arguments the record supports. That is different from predicting a ruling, and the difference is not academic when you are making decisions based on it.
What we can say plainly is what drives the answer. The evidence is what determines how a court will divide marital property, and nothing else does. A division argument is built out of documents, valuations and testimony about the five factors, which is why the property side of a case is mostly a discovery exercise governed by Rule 56.01.
Does the Division Include Debt?
Yes, and the statute now says so in its own words.
Section 452.330.1 RSMo directs the court to divide “the marital property and marital debts.” The same sentence that tells a court to divide marital property tells it to divide marital debts, on the same just proportions standard, rather than automatically assigning a debt to whoever signed for it. Marital debt is generally debt incurred during the marriage.
Assigning debt to the party who ran it up is one available outcome and it is not the only one. In Tate v. Tate, 920 S.W.2d 98, decided by the Eastern District in 1996, a ten year marriage between a dentist and a homemaker, the trial court declined to hold the wife accountable for half of the credit card debts the husband had paid before the dissolution, roughly $13,878 of which came from his gambling losses. The appellate court held that “The court did not err in refusing to hold wife accountable for one-half of the credit card debts paid by husband prior to the dissolution,” and affirmed the decree in full.
Here is the part that catches people after the case is over. A judgment can allocate a debt between you and your spouse. Your lender is not a party to your divorce. Our page on whether divorce affects your credit score covers what that means in practice.
What Counts as Marital Property in the First Place?
Almost everything acquired during the marriage, with five statutory exceptions and a presumption that does not care about titling.
Section 452.330.2 RSMo defines marital property as all property acquired after the marriage except property acquired by gift, bequest, devise or descent, property acquired in exchange for such property or for premarital property, property acquired after a decree of legal separation, property excluded by valid written agreement, and increases in value of that property “unless marital assets including labor, have contributed to such increases and then only to the extent of such contributions.”
Section 452.330.3 RSMo then presumes everything acquired during the marriage is marital “regardless of whether title is held individually or by the spouses in some form of co-ownership.” So the first question is never how to divide marital property. It is what belongs on the list at all, and the presumption starts that argument against the spouse claiming an exception. All of this sits in Chapter 452 RSMo.
Two related pages cover the harder classification fights. Our page on whether a business is marital property covers a company, and our page on who keeps the engagement ring covers the gift question in miniature.
What If Separate Property Was Mixed With Marital Property?
Mixing alone does not convert it, but failing to trace it can.
Section 452.330.4 RSMo says nonmarital property “shall not become marital property solely because it may have become commingled with marital property.” In re Marriage of Drikow, 803 S.W.2d 122, an Eastern District case from 1990 involving inherited funds in a twenty eight year marriage, held that “more than a mere commingling” is needed to transmute separate property, while recognizing that commingling plus an inability to trace can end with separate property classified as marital.
Joint titling is a bigger step than mixing. Selby v. Selby, 149 S.W.3d 472, a 2004 Western District case about a 446 acre farm, held the resulting presumption “can only be rebutted with clear and convincing evidence that the owner spouse did not intend to convert the property to marital property.”
And growth is proportional rather than all or nothing, under the source of funds approach adopted in Hoffmann v. Hoffmann, 676 S.W.2d 817 in 1984. Our page on protecting assets during a divorce goes through the tracing work in detail.
Who Gets the House?
The statute addresses it directly inside the first factor, and it ties the house to the children.
Factor one names “the desirability of awarding the family home or the right to live therein for reasonable periods to the spouse having custody of any children.” Note that the statute offers two different things. The home itself, or the right to live in it for reasonable periods.
That second option is why an arrangement that looks unusual, such as one parent staying in the house for a defined period before it is sold, is not exotic. It is contemplated by the statute.
What Does the Property Division Not Decide?
Three things, and keeping them separate makes the whole case easier to think about.
It does not decide maintenance. That is Section 452.335 RSMo, with its own threshold and its own ten factors.
It does not decide child support. That runs through Section 452.340 RSMo and Form 14.
And it does not rewrite anybody’s loan agreement, as the credit point above explains.
It is also not the same exercise as the temporary orders that run while a case is pending, which come from Section 452.315 RSMo, or the fee and cost orders that come from Section 452.355.1 RSMo.
One further boundary. Once the judgment is entered, reopening a property division is narrow. Rule 74.06 allows relief for fraud, misrepresentation or other misconduct of an adverse party, and Rule 74.06(c) caps that at “not more than one year after the judgment or order was entered.”
Who Can Help Divide Marital Property in St. Louis?
The work that changes the outcome is classification and valuation, and both are done with documents.
Bardol Law Firm practices only family law, and we are in the St. Louis County, St. Louis City, St. Charles County and Jefferson County courts regularly. If you are trying to divide marital property and the two of you disagree about what is even on the list, that is where we start, because classification comes before division and it is often where the real money is. Our property division page covers the framework, our high net worth page covers the version with retirement accounts, businesses and multiple properties in it, and our other family law questions and answers cover the rest.
You should not have to chase your attorney for basic updates while your finances are being sorted out. Every client here has a named paralegal on the file, and we generally return calls within one business day.
Family Law, Simplified.
If you want to know what your actual exposure looks like rather than a percentage from the internet, bring the statements and we will go through it. Contact Bardol Law Firm or call 314.918.0100.
This page is general information about Missouri law and is not legal advice. Every case turns on its own facts. The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.