When your home, business, or retirement accounts are on the line, we help you protect what’s actually yours and secure a fair share of what you built together.
Texas divides the community estate in divorce under a just and right standard, which gives judges real discretion and makes preparation decisive. Tex. Fam. Code sec. 7.001.[1]
Everything either spouse possesses at divorce is presumed community property, and separate property must be proven by clear and convincing evidence. Tex. Fam. Code sec. 3.003.[2] How assets are characterized, valued, and structured determines what you keep.
At Hicks Family Lawyers, property division is home ground. We bring 27+ years of corporate law experience to valuing, dividing, and structuring business interests and complex assets, because an estate you spent years building deserves the same rigor that built it. You get strategy. Perspective. Results that last.
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Community property is everything acquired by either spouse during the marriage that is not separate property, regardless of whose name is on the account or title. Tex. Fam. Code sec. 3.002.[3]
Separate property is what a spouse owned before marriage, what they received during marriage by gift or inheritance, and most personal injury recoveries. Tex. Fam. Code sec. 3.001.[4]
Which estate an asset belongs to is a question of community vs. separate property characterization, and it is decided by evidence rather than by title. Once separate and community funds commingle, keeping the separate character depends on tracing, and tracing depends on records.
Just and right does not mean an automatic 50/50 split. Courts weigh factors such as fault in the breakup of the marriage, each spouse’s earning capacity and health, the size of each separate estate, and the needs of the children, and disproportionate divisions are common when the circumstances support them.
Discretion cuts both ways. The spouse who arrives with organized evidence, credible valuations, and a coherent proposal tends to shape the division, and we build that position deliberately from the first week of the case.
This is where the corporate background does its heaviest work. When one spouse owns a company, a divorce involving business ownership raises questions of control, continuity, and value that must be answered before division can even be discussed sensibly.
The number itself is a discipline of its own. Business valuation and division turns on methodology, expert work, and the difference between enterprise value and what a spouse can actually be paid: buyouts, offsets against other assets, and payment terms that let the company keep operating.
Executive compensation adds its own layer. Courts must determine each spouse’s rights in retirement plans, pensions, stock option plans, and similar assets, and unvested equity raises timing and characterization questions that reward specialized handling. Tex. Fam. Code sec. 7.003.[5]
Texas also recognizes reimbursement claims between the marital estates, as when community funds pay down one spouse’s separate mortgage. These claims are easy to overlook and expensive to forget.
Division only works when disclosure can be trusted. When it cannot, a hidden assets and financial misconduct strategy pairs targeted discovery, tracing, and forensic accounting with the remedies courts provide, and concealment or waste can itself tilt the division. We negotiate in good faith, and we protect the estate when good faith is not returned.
Retirement assets divide by their own rules. Plan benefits require precisely drafted orders to divide without tax damage, and premarital balances raise separate-property claims that must be traced and proven.
Real estate spans the home, commercial holdings, and investment properties, and the work covers valuation, transfer, partition, and preservation. The house is often the emotional center of the case, and the steadiest way through is to decide it on real numbers.
We map the estate early and completely: every entity, account, benefit plan, and property, characterized and valued on defensible numbers. Settlement positions built that way tend to hold, because the other side’s expert finds nothing soft to push on.
The purpose is not to win an inventory. It is to move what you have built through the transition intact, structured so that your business, your holdings, and your future keep working on the other side.
The estate connects to every other decision in the case:
A well-divided estate is one that keeps working: the business operating, the accounts intact, the numbers defensible, and the future funded. That is what the division is for.
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Let's walk through what happens next.
Tell us what you're facing. We'll explain your options and the likely path - clearly, and without pressure.
Common questions
No. Texas is a community property state, but the division standard is just and right, not equal. Many divisions land near 50/50; courts award disproportionate shares when fault, earning capacity, health, or other factors justify it.
A business started during the marriage is generally community property, and even a business owned before marriage can generate community claims through income, growth, or contributions during the marriage. Characterization and valuation decide the outcome, and both are evidence questions.
There is no default. Courts and settlements weigh who can afford it, the children’s stability, and how the equity balances against the rest of the division. Offsets, buyouts, and timed sales are all common structures.
By clear and convincing evidence: deeds and account records predating the marriage, gift and inheritance documentation, and tracing that follows the asset through every transaction since. The presumption runs against you, so the records carry the claim.
Equity compensation is divided based on when it was earned and when it vests, which often splits a single grant between community and separate estates. Valuing and structuring those interests is a core part of our practice.
[1] Tex. Fam. Code sec. 7.001 (General Rule of Property Division) | https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/FA/htm/FA.7.htm#7.001
[2] Tex. Fam. Code sec. 3.003 (Presumption of Community Property) | https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/FA/htm/FA.3.htm#3.003
[3] Tex. Fam. Code sec. 3.002 (Community Property) | https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/FA/htm/FA.3.htm#3.002
[4] Tex. Fam. Code sec. 3.001 (Separate Property) | https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/FA/htm/FA.3.htm#3.001
[5] Tex. Fam. Code sec. 7.003 (Disposition of Retirement and Employment Benefits and Other Plans) | https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/FA/htm/FA.7.htm#7.003
