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Marital Debt

David Siegel: And what about marital debt? How does the Chicago court try and allocate marital debt?

Jesse Barrientes: It kind of works that way, the same kind of way, in terms of we see what the debt is. Even if the debt was used for a non-marital purpose – and now we’re getting into another fancy term of ours is what they’re calling dissipation. We can have dissipation if I take marital money – let’s say we have a joint account here and I’ve taken $50,000.00 out of it, and I went with my girlfriend –

David Siegel: Here we go with the adultery again.

Jesse Barrientes: Here we go with the adultery again – to the Bahamas or wherever, and I used it very clearly for a non-marital purpose. Then, if the other side filed what they call a notice of intent to claim dissipation, now it’s incumbent upon me to be able to trace that money, and to prove, and to show exactly where it was spent and everything else. The same, I think you can do and have that theory with respect to the debts. If I charged up a debt, because I know we’re on the outs here, and I go someplace and charge something up that’s not for a marital purpose to increase the debt so that I get a bigger piece of the pie or so that you have to pay some of it, then they could allocate the entire thing to me. But generally, what they’re going to do is they’re going to divide it in such a way as to equalize the situation for the parties’ income and the debt. It depends upon how long the marriage was and other factors as well.

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