Florida divides marital property through equitable distribution, and the statute begins from the premise that an equal split is equitable.
That starting point is often misread in both directions. It does not mean every asset is halved, and it does not mean the court has broad discretion to divide as it sees fit. The work is in establishing what is marital, what it is worth, and whether anything justifies departing from equal.
The Three-Step Process
First, the court identifies which assets and liabilities are marital and which are non-marital. Second, it values the marital property. Third, it distributes, beginning from a presumption of equal division.
Most disputes in a typical case occur in the first step. Once characterization is settled, the rest frequently follows without much argument.
What Is Marital
Assets acquired by either spouse during the marriage are marital, regardless of whose name appears on the title. That covers income earned, property purchased, retirement contributions made, and debt incurred during the marriage.
It also includes the enhancement in value and appreciation of non-marital assets where that resulted from marital funds or the efforts of either spouse during the marriage.
Gifts between spouses during the marriage are marital. So are benefits accrued in retirement plans, pensions, deferred compensation, and insurance policies to the extent they accrued during the marriage.
What Is Non-Marital
Assets owned before the marriage are non-marital, as are inheritances and gifts received individually from someone other than the spouse.
Income derived from non-marital assets is non-marital unless the parties treated it as a marital asset. Assets excluded by a valid written agreement are non-marital by that agreement.
Assets acquired after the filing date, or after a date specified in a separation agreement, are also non-marital.
Commingling Is Where Claims Fail
A non-marital asset can lose that character, and it happens more easily than people expect.
An inheritance deposited into a joint account used for household expenses becomes difficult to distinguish from marital funds. A house owned before the marriage, with the mortgage paid from marital earnings and improvements made with marital funds, gives rise to a marital claim on part of its value.
Establishing a non-marital claim at Griffin Family Law requires tracing — following the asset from its separate origin through every account to where it sits today. Where records exist, tracing works. When accounts were mixed for years without documentation, it often doesn’t.
Practical advice for anyone with a significant non-marital asset: keep it separate and keep records. That advice is useless after the fact, which is why prenuptial and postnuptial agreements exist.
When Courts Depart From Equal
Florida permits unequal distribution where justified, considering factors including each spouse’s contribution to the marriage, the economic circumstances of each, the duration of the marriage, interruptions to careers or education, contributions to the other’s career, the desirability of retaining an asset intact, and the contribution of each to the acquisition of marital assets.
The factor that produces the most litigation is intentional dissipation — waste, depletion, or destruction of marital assets after the filing or within a period before it. Money spent on an affair, gambling losses, or assets transferred to family members are recurring examples.
Where dissipation is established, the court can assign the wasted value to the spending spouse as part of their share, which effectively reimburses the other.
Prenuptial and Postnuptial Agreements
A valid marital agreement overrides the default rules and is the most reliable way to protect a non-marital asset.
Florida enforces these agreements, subject to challenges on grounds including fraud, duress, coercion, and, in defined circumstances, unfairness combined with inadequate disclosure of assets before signing.
Full financial disclosure before execution is the single most important factor in enforceability. An agreement signed without the other party knowing what they were giving up is the most vulnerable kind.
Timing matters too. An agreement presented days before a wedding invites a duress argument that one negotiated months in advance does not.
Postnuptial agreements are also available and are used when circumstances change during a marriage, an inheritance is received, a business is started, or a reconciliation with terms attached.
The Marital Home
The house is usually the largest and most contested asset, and the analysis has two parts: what it is worth and who can actually keep it.
Retaining the home generally requires refinancing to remove the other spouse from the mortgage. Qualifying on a single income frequently proves impossible, and a settlement built on an assumed refinance that then fails leaves both parties tied together after the divorce.
Where there are children, a court can award exclusive use and possession of the home for a period, deferring sale until a defined event such as the youngest child finishing school. That preserves stability at the cost of delaying one spouse’s access to their share.
If the house is to be sold, the agreement should specify timing, listing-price methodology, who pays carrying costs in the interim, and how proceeds are allocated.
Retirement Accounts
Retirement benefits accrued during the marriage are marital property. Where an account predates the marriage, only the marital portion is divided, and for a defined benefit pension that determination is an actuarial exercise.
Dividing most employer plans requires a qualified domestic relations order directed to the plan administrator, which is a document separate from the final judgment. An agreement that says accounts will be divided, without specifying who prepares that order and by when, creates a problem later.
Different account types also carry different tax consequences on withdrawal, which means equal dollar amounts are not always equal value. A settlement trading a retirement account against cash should account for that.
Businesses and Professional Practices
Where a spouse owns a business, it is frequently the largest asset and the hardest to value.
A business started during the marriage is marital. One owned beforehand may have a marital component where its value increased through marital funds or a spouse’s efforts during the marriage.
Valuation is expert work and competing opinions routinely differ substantially. Contested points include whether the owner’s compensation was set artificially, whether personal expenses ran through the business, whether revenue was deferred around the filing date, and how to treat goodwill.
Florida distinguishes enterprise goodwill, which is marital and divisible, from personal goodwill attached to the individual practitioner, which generally is not. That distinction is central in professional practice cases, and it is genuinely contested.
Interim Partial Distribution
Florida allows a court to order a partial distribution of marital assets before the final judgment in circumstances of good cause.
This matters where a case is taking a long time and one spouse has no access to funds. Courts do not routinely grant it; you must show a genuine need, not just a preference to receive something sooner.
Where it is granted, the amount is credited against that spouse’s eventual share rather than being additional.
Debts Divide Too
Liabilities incurred during the marriage are marital regardless of whose name is on them, and they are distributed alongside the assets.
The critical limitation is that the final judgment binds the spouses, not the creditors. Where a joint obligation is allocated to one spouse who then fails to pay, the lender can still pursue the other. Closing joint accounts and refinancing joint debt is more protective than any allocation on paper.
If you are working through property division in a St. Augustine divorce, call Griffin Family Law. Characterization and tracing decide these cases, and both depend on records gathered early.
