Settling a divorce involving a veteran of the U.S. military can be more complicated than with a typical divorce. Federal and state laws determine how veterans benefits may be divided during the divorce. With the varying types of benefits a veteran can receive, divorcing spouses may have difficulty differentiating between them. Some benefits are treated as marital property, while others are exempt from division. The duration of both the marriage and the veteran spouse’s service can also affect how the benefits are treated. Here is a breakdown of different types of veterans benefits and how they relate to divorce.

Medical Benefits

Spouses and dependents are eligible for coverage under a military veteran’s health care plan, such as TRICARE. When a spouse divorces a veteran, the spouse can remain on the health plan indefinitely, as long as:

It is easy to think of a divorce settlement in terms of winners and losers. You may feel like you won the negotiations if you obtained most of the marital properties you wanted and secured favorable support payments. However, there is more to a divorce settlement than the initial financial totals:

• Property ownership can come with additional expenses;
• Some properties have more potential for growth; and
• How support payments are structured can favor one side in terms of taxes.

You need to take a broad perspective of the financial consequences of your divorce settlement.

Pursuing Your Home

Properties are categorized during a divorce as being marital or non-marital. Marital properties must be equitably divided between the spouses, but non-marital properties are exempt. A spouse has an incentive to identify non-marital properties in order to protect them. Spouses often share their most valuable assets, which may make them marital properties. However, a court may rule that a trust made in one spouse’s name is non-marital property, even if the other spouse was named as a beneficiary. Revocable trusts can protect money and properties from division during a divorce.

Understanding Trusts

A revocable trust, also known as a living trust, is an estate-planning document that allocates assets to beneficiaries without the need for probate court. The grantor puts income and properties into the trust, which is administered by a third-party trustee. Though the trust owns the assets, the grantor has control over them while alive. Upon the grantor’s death, the assets are distributed per the trust’s instructions. A spouse is often a primary beneficiary of a trust, but Illinois law automatically revokes a former spouse’s beneficiary status after completion of a divorce. If the trust was established for the sole purpose of benefiting the spouse, a divorce will revoke the entire trust.

Divorcing spouses are required to divide their marital property as part of the settlement. It is important to accurately value all of your assets to ensure that you are getting an equitable share. There are tangible and intangible ways you can assign worth to assets, and understanding them is key to successfully negotiating your division of property. If the court is forced to decide on the division of property, it may not know the personal importance you place on assets that seem less valuable.  When assessing the value of your marital property, there are four questions that you should answer.

Which Properties Are Shared?

Before assigning values to your properties, you need to identify your marital properties that will be subject to division. Courts typically consider marital properties to be those that:

Double dipping comes in many forms and generally leaves at least one person upset. When it occurs during a divorce, a spouse is giving up an inequitable share of money or assets. “Double dipping” in divorce happens when a spouse’s income is used to determine both:

• The value of an asset during the division of marital property; and
• The amount given in spousal support payments.

Many states, including Illinois, try to prevent double dipping by not counting personal income as a marital property. During business valuations, distinguishing personal income from marital property can be difficult. A business is both a shared property and an individual income source. How you determine a business’ value can prevent double dipping.

Valuation Process