When referring to what is called equitable distribution payments in a West Virginia divorce, this is used in a family court in West Virginia, under West Virginia law. It has a very specific meaning. So an equitable distribution payment is generally a payment of some sort that one person is going to make to the other, to equalize a distribution of property. That’s it in a nutshell. For example, one has a bunch of property that needs to be divided and let’s say that there’s no possible way to divide it equally. That means that one person is going to be getting more property than the other. Well, there has to be a way under West Virginia law to equalize it because in West Virginia, generally all property that is considered to be marital is supposed to be divided equally.
If you have this unequal distribution of property, then what that means is that one person who’s getting more property is going to have to pay to the other person. Now, oftentimes this is handled such that for example, you have what that per the person who’s getting more property might take on a little bit more debt for the purposes of there being equalization. That is sometimes how it’s dealt with or if just within a very small amount, it could be that there doesn’t really need to be any kind of equitable distribution payment. It can be that one person would otherwise perhaps be owed a little bit of spousal support. In that case, one person does not owe any kind of equitable distribution payment to the other.
Let’s say that there’s a home and that this home is worth a hundred thousand dollars. If for example, $50,000 in debt associated with the home and they have $50,000 in equity in the home. If somebody is going to be keeping the house, then they’re going to have to pay the other person the difference of $25,000. The person might have a certain amount of time to pay it. The person might do it in what we call equitable distribution payments, but regardless, the person is going to have to pay up to the other person to make sure that that person is made whole. Those are some important things to remember when one is thinking about dividing property and what the court is going to do. Sometimes the court will order the equitable distribution payment and sometimes they will not.
