From time to time, in my limited spare time, I read. As the inner nerd in me still exists, that includes looking at odd topics related to divorce laws in other places. Colorado is one of fifty states. Though our laws have similarities to other states, they also differ. To Denver divorce attorneys, our statutes makes sense, though not always, largely based on familiarity and the fact that change often comes at a snails pace. Over the years I have read horror stories from other states, such as Massachusetts, which apparently does, or did, factor in new spouses’ incomes when recalculating alimony (properly termed maintenance in Colorado). I recall a story a few years ago from somewhere back east, in which a man was ordered to pay alimony at the time of his divorce, with his wife ultimately remarrying and his alimony stopping. Once the wife divorced her second husband, she was able to go back and get alimony again from her first husband. Upon reading that story, I concluded that payers of alimony in Colorado should thank their lucky stars that alimony terminates upon remarriage of the payee and cannot be revived. This was, perhaps, the oddest article I had seen until March of 2015.
While browsing the internet in my efforts to know more than I did the day before, I came across an article related to divorce and property that takes the proverbial cake. The specific article related to not another state, but another country, England. In this article regarding a British divorce, a husband and wife were married in the early 1980’s and divorced in the early 1990’s. Presumably all issues of property division and support were resolved at that time. As U.S. law is rooted in English law I could not help but presume that procedures and notions of fairness would be similar to ours. Those presumptions were wrong. In this case, during the next roughly 20 years, the ex-husband has started some sort of energy company and amassed a fortune in excess of $100 million pounds (pounds being worth significantly more than our dollars). In the article, the ex-wife, of far less means and perhaps down on her luck, was able to convince a British court that she should be able to come after her husband years later, essentially must because he had made out like a bandit and she had not. The British court, seeming to be at the appellate level, remanded the case back to the trial court, having ruled that she could make a claim against the fortune he had amassed subsequent to the divorce and division of assets.
In Colorado, pursuant to C.R.S. 14-10-113, property is divided at the time of the divorce decree, meaning when the initial divorce case is over. Beyond potentially filing an appeal, or perhaps in cases in which an asset is hidden or not disclosed, there is no going back to seek property amassed after the divorce from the former spouse. If our laws mirrored those in the English case, divorce would just be a new chapter in a life long saga of back and forth with the courts, as either spouse waited to pounce on the post-divorce good fortune of the other. A decision like that in the British case would turn divorce law in Colorado on its head. Fortunately, property divisions are final and our courts recognize that but for lingering issues of support which can arise, property divisions are final and people are given the latitude to move on with their lives.
As I look across the ocean, moving east to west, it seems that sanity mapped up with the law grows the father one moves towards the Rocky Mountains. To learn more about your property rights and representation in a divorce in Colorado, contact an experienced attorney.
