Q: In an amicable divorce, is it okay to minimize paperwork by omitting certain assets (car) from the settlement agreement?
The parties involved have already divided some community property in agreement and would like to keep it out of the settlement agreement. Is there any associated risk?
A:
The court won't check to see that you included every possible asset in your settlement agreement. The court simply doesn't have the time or budget to do that. If you leave certain assets out of the agreement, then the risk is that you won't have it in writing who gets that asset if a dispute arises later on. If you're fairly confident that a dispute won't arise or, if one does arise, you're willing to just give up the property in question, you can leave that property out.
Unless there's something I'm missing, including property in a settlement agreement is very easy and is usually done with a simple schedule of assets. This is usually 1 or 2 pages. You wouldn't save that much work by leaving the schedule of assets out.
Andy
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