Your spouse files for divorce and serves you the paperwork. You are surprised, as you did not even know that they were thinking about a divorce.
However, when you check your bank account, you realize that this is something your spouse has been considering for some time. They planned in advance, and they even went so far as to empty your joint bank account. Are they legally allowed to do so?
Marital assets must still be divided
It may be legal for them to empty the bank account if it is truly a joint account and both owners have access to it. Because they did it prior to filing for the divorce, there should not be anything that restricts their access to their own funds.
However, those funds are still marital assets. Your spouse is required to report the contents of the bank account while making financial disclosures. You may deserve 50% of that account, for instance, which still needs to be provided to you even if they removed it from the bank account. If they fail to report the funds or give them away, they may be illegally hiding assets.
You may also be concerned that your spouse has spent the money. If so, that is known as the dissipation of marital assets. Just as with illegally hidden assets, you still deserve a portion of those funds. The court will certainly look at your spouse’s actions unfavorably and can still give you your proper allotment of those marital funds during property division.
So, even if it was legal for your spouse to access the money initially, that does not mean the money is gone forever. You can still address your rights during property division, and it is important to know exactly what legal steps to take.