Considering divorce in California after almost 2 years of marriage.. We have one child (a 6 month old). My wife stopped working about a year...

Question

Considering divorce in California after almost 2 years of marriage.. We have one child (a 6 month old). My wife stopped working about a year ago and I support the family. She also has no assets and I had substantial assets prior to marriage.

- I have a condo that's fully paid for (worth about $600k now) that I've owned outright for over 6 years.

- I have a personal brokerage account (worth about $350k now, was worth about $250k when I got married, deposited about $60k into it during marriage)

- I have two IRAs (worth about $800k now, was worth about $600k when I got married). I've never put any money in it after I got married.

Will I be able to keep these assets separate?

I'm happy to pay child support, but would I have to pay spousal support as well considering the short length of the marriage?

Thanks

Answer

All the property that you had prior to marriage remains your separate property as long as you can trace it. It sounds as if the records have been kept so you should have no difficulty determining that the majority of the referenced assets are your separate property. Any contributions by earnings that were provided to the accounts that you've referenced during the course of the marriage would create a small community interest based upon those contributions.