Splitting couple may be splitting bonus, too
Question: Last September my wife filed for divorce. Our children are grown, so we are doing the paperwork ourselves. The divorce should be final next month. I am a real estate broker. Although last year I did not have a particularly good year as a real estate broker, our brokerage firm had an excellent year. All of the real estate brokers in the brokerage firm, including me, recently received a $12,000 year-end bonus. My wife says that she is entitled to half of this $12,000 year-end bonus, because we were married for most of 2019. Is my wife entitled to half, or even any, of this $12,000 year-end bonus?
Answer: The general rule is that, after a petition for divorce is filed, any income earned by the spouse is the separate property of the respective spouse. An exception is compensation for services rendered during the marriage. Whether the $12,000 year-end bonus to you from your brokerage firm was compensation for services rendered to the brokerage firm, or was a “gift” to you from the brokerage firm, would depend upon the records of the brokerage firm and the testimony of the principals in the brokerage firm as to the reasons that you received the $12,000 year-end bonus. 15% since the beginning of April. So home selection has dwindled. But Crawford said there’s still plenty of data confirming the strength of Altanta’s market in comparison to other cities across the country.
CoreLogic data, for example, shows that Atlanta was second in the country in terms of the decline in mortgage applications behind only Dallas. That means more buyers are moving ahead with purchases.
“That is a substantial change,” Crawford said. “The Atlanta market is not only doing well compared to other regions of the country, it’s doing a pretty darn good job compared to last year.”
The same can be said of Raleigh-Durham, 400 miles to the north. The real estate market there was also red hot before COVID-19 and inventory was exceptionally tight.
“We had two months of inventory or less,” said Van Fletcher, a broker/Realtor with Allen Tate Realtors in Raleigh.
“When the initial shock of COVID-19 came, we hit a freeze frame on activity,” Fletcher said. “Showings dropped off. New listings dropped off, and that lasted most of March. That’s when we saw the greatest fear. But things started to thaw a little in April.”
Since then, the market has been relatively strong, especially at the low end. “Under $300,000, we’re receiving multiple offers,” said Otto Cedeno, the owner of Movil Realty, a Durham real estate firm. “People are buying properties without seeing them and closing on virtual tours.”
Cedeno said his company was selling 130 to 140 homes in February and March, but he’s going to pass 160 in April, and that’s at the height of the pandemic.
Texas cities also have shown considerable strength during the pandemic, and none more so than Austin.
Though total listings were down nearly 6% to just over 5,100 homes as of April 5, new inventory was up 13.5% –-- more than any other major metro area in the country.