Filing For Divorce in Indiana

• One of you is convicted of a felony after you are married.
• One of you was impotent at the time that you were married and continues to be so.
• One of you has been determined to be incurably mentally ill for at least two years.  

No one needs to be found at fault if you file for divorce on the basis that your marriage is irretrievably broken, meaning there’s no hope of getting back together.  

4. How does Indiana determine the division of property?    
It doesn’t matter how you got what you have — everything is fair game in an Indiana divorce. If you leave everything up to the court, it will divide your property regardless of whether:

• It was something you or your spouse owned before you were married.
• It was something you or your spouse earned on your own while you were married and before separating.
• It was something the two of you acquired together.     

The court does take a “just and reasonable” approach to this division. It might divide the property between the two of you, depending on what it is. Or it might give the property to one of you and require you to give the other spouse some money for his or her part of the property — a house may be divided this way, for example. The court may order you both to sell the property and divide the profit. Or if the property is something you or your spouse will receive after you divorce — a pension, for example — the court may designate a percentage to be shared.  

As an equitable distribution state, the court will split your property according to what it considers fair unless one of you shows that would not be “just and reasonable.” Either of you can make a case for something other than equitable distribution based on one of these factors:

• What each of you contributed toward the acquisition of the property.
• Whether the property was something you had before you were married or something you received as an inheritance or gift.
• Your economic circumstances. This factor in particular might influence who is allowed to continue living in your home, especially where children are involved.
• The way each of you handled property while you were married.
• Your earnings or earning ability.  

The court also will consider one unique circumstance in settling your property: If neither of you has much of anything else to divide, the court may order one of you to pay the other for contributing toward education expenses. This might be an issue if one of you helped pay for the tuition, books and lab fees of the other while he or she got a degree, but the economic rewards of that degree haven’t yet been realized.  

Finally, the court will take into account what tax consequences each of you might face based on the property you are awarded.  

Of course, you don’t have to leave it to the court. If you both can agree on how to divvy things up, you can present a settlement agreement to the court. Or you can divide what you can agree on, then ask the court for a hearing on those matters you can’t resolve on your own.