In most Colorado property settlements, the concepts of marital property, separate property, and marital gain, look, feel, and result in distributions very much like community property concepts. But Colorado is not a community property state. In short, Colorado courts sitting in certain divorces have a great deal of discretion. That's hard to pin down. Say we have Tommy Tycoon, his wife of thirty years, Winifred, and a one hundred million dollar corporation with fifty employees as a marital asset.
Dramatic circumstances can also invoke discretionary calls.
For example, one spouse fritters away a lot of money gambling, while the other builds up a marital asset using separate property resources. Finally, and this happens quite often, the court can consider maintenance and property division together before using its discretion to make an equitable distribution of marital property. On the whole, Colorado courts have greater flexibility in divvying up marital assets than community property states. And I believe, that's a good thing. Copyrighted 1999 All Rights Reserved.