
Quoting
LittleWhoadie
Thanks for the info.
Well, they have been married for 2 years. She left after 1 year, but as I understand, divorces are not retroactive, so any split of marital property would be based on the time of divorce, not based upon the date she or he last considered themselves married, right? I just think the marital property would far exceed the value of her personal items, so I don't think she should so easily give up her items as well as the marital property she's entitled to - exchanging one for the other seems reasonable. There has been no debt taken on during the marriage - the husband had a mortgage and a car, as well as a retirement/401k plan. No additional debt was incurred and there were no balances on the credit cards. However I am sure the equity in the home has increased, as has the value of 401k/retirement, and I would guess that value is far in excess of the value of her personal items.
You say the divorce does not need to be recorded in the same place where the marriage was recorded... that seems counter-intuitive to me. Let's say she prosecutes the divorce in Hungary and it is approved, but nothing is recorded in Kansas. Doesn't that mean that under USA/Kansas law, he is still married to her? What if she decided to come back to the USA under a visa or re-marry another American in the future, would she not be considered still legally married to the ex considering there is a marriage on record but no divorce?
Some online checking I did seems to indicate that, in order to be valid in Kansas (or any USA state), a foreign divorce must be recorded and must fall within certain circumstances (which this one appears to - such as one spouse living in that foreign country for a set amount of time). If the divorce would not be recorded in Kansas, then what would the point of getting it in Hungary be (considering that Hungary does not consider her married and has no record of such)?
And if a foreign divorce was then recorded in Kansas, how is the property split then handled? Do they just record the divorce and ignore the property aspect of a traditional divorce? Or do they then take the property split aspect into account along with the fact that a foreign divorce has occurred?
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From my understanding of the law, she is actually entitled to both her personal property from before marriage as well as half of the marital property. I don't see how advising her to walk away from both of those things is good advice, nor do I see how "there were two people in the marriage" somehow means she should lose both her marital property and her personal property. That does not seem realistic, it seems absolutely defeatist and a bad way to proceed, to me.