What Is The Difference Between Divorce And Legal Separation?
Oliver Ross: The difference between legal separation and divorce is that the marriage continues in legal separation, where in divorce the marriage ends. That's pretty obvious. But what… With legal separation, the marriage continues, but the community is separated. In other words, as of a certain date in the court process, each spouse's income is their own, any debts they incur, are their own. And if there is a question of valuation, valuing real estate, valuing retirement accounts, for example, a certain date in the legal process determines the value of those assets.
Now, there are three common reasons why people choose legal separation over divorce. One would be because of religious beliefs. In other words, they just don't believe that divorce is a, from a religious point of view, the right thing to do. Another would be that one person perhaps is a debtor; they're out incurring gambling debts, credit card debts and the other spouse says, "Look, I wanna be married to you, but I don't want to be responsible for your debt." And then, the third reason why someone might choose legal separation over divorce is because of health insurance considerations.
Now, that's becoming more and more difficult because many of the health insurance companies are considering legal separation the same as divorce. In other words, the non-employee or the non-insured spouse cannot remain on the policy, even though it's legal separation versus divorce..
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