One of the biggest tasks you will have when finalizing your divorce agreement is to decide how you will divide your property. You will need to first determine which assets are marital property, which can be a challenge.
The process requires understanding the laws for determining separate property, which Yahoo explains can be complex in a high-asset divorce.
Inheritances
Many high-asset marriages include money that came from inheritances. In general, an inheritance is separate property under divorce laws. Regardless of when you receive it, it is your money alone. But there is a chance that you could make decisions that would render part of your inheritance no longer separate property.
Comingling
is when you take separate property and use marital property to maintain it, or you take this property and make it marital property through use. When you commingle, the court could call separate property marital property, which means you must divide it in the divorce.
If you have a long marriage, then commingling is almost always going to happen. Unless you have a prenuptial agreement protecting your separate property, you may run into this issue that can complicate your property division process.
You may never realize that you are mixing your assets because most people do not think about separate and marital property until they begin divorcing. Knowing about it beforehand can help you to avoid these problems, but even if you do not learn about commingling until it is too late, it will at least allow you to plan out your approach to property division better.