Parties often assume that upon divorce the estate will be dividing equally. Section 7.001 of the Texas Family Code (TFC) provides that "the court shall order a division of the estate of the parties in a manner that the court deems just and right, having due regard of the rights of each party and any children of the marriage." The TFC states that a party should be awarded a disproportionate share of the parties' estate for the following reasons, including but not limited to:
fault in the breakup of the marriage;
benefits the innocent spouse may have derived from the continuation of the marriage;
disparity of earning power of the spouses and their ability to support themselves;
health of the spouses;
the spouse to whom conservatorship of the child[ren] is granted;
needs of the child[ren] of the marriage;
education and future employability of the spouses;
community indebtedness and liabilities;
tax consequences of the division of property;
ages of the spouses;
earning power, business opportunities, capacities, and abilities of the spouses;
need for future support;
nature of the property involved in the division;
wasting of community assets by the spouses;
credit for temporary support paid by a spouse;
community funds used to purchase out-of-state property;
gifts to or by a spouse during the marriage;
increase in value of separate property through community efforts by time, talent, labor, and effort;
excessive community-property gifts to the parties’ child[ren];
reimbursement;
expected inheritance of a spouse;
attorney’s fees to be paid;
creation of community property through the use of a spouse’s separate estate;
the size and nature of the separate estates of the spouses;
creation of community property by the efforts or lack thereof of the spouses;
actual fraud committed by a spouse; and
constructive fraud committed by a spouse.
It's food for thought and how to get a bigger piece of the pie!