Texas Divorce Attorney Blog
Texas divorce cases can involve multiple areas of law. Contract law applies to pre-marital and post-marital agreements. Contract law may also apply to agreements the parties enter into as part of a divorce. In a recent case, a portion of a wife’s claims for contractual alimony was barred by the contract statute of limitations.
When the parties divorced in 2012, they entered into a written agreement. Their divorce decree included a provision for “Contractual Alimony,” with the parties agreeing that the husband would pay the wife $4,000 per month, payable on the first of the month with a five-day grace period before the payment would be considered late. The contractual alimony was to be paid from June 2013 to May 2015. The decree further stated that the wife could accelerate the payments if the husband defaulted and failed to cure within 30 days of receiving notice of intent to accelerate.
Wife Moves to Enforce Contractual Alimony
The wife moved to enforce the alimony requirements on March 26, 2019. She alleged the husband had failed to make the payments starting in December 2013. She asked the court to order him to pay the past due payments, interest, and fees and costs.
In some cases, a party to a Texas divorce may agree to a settlement that seemingly has less-than-favorable terms. For example, a party may agree to their spouse receiving property with a higher monetary value to ensure they receive property that has personal value to them. In a 
Texas is one of the few states that still recognizes “informal marriage,” also sometimes known as “common law marriage.” A party who petitions for divorce from an informal marriage often must prove the existence of the informal marriage in the first place. To prove there was an informal marriage, the party must show the couple had an agreement to be married, subsequently lived as spouses together in Texas, and represented themselves as married. Tex. Fam. Code Ann. § 2.401. Furthermore, all of these elements must occur at the same time. Evidence of an informal marriage may include evidence the parties addressed each other as spouses, conducted themselves as married people, or lived together. Evidence that the parties lived together and represented themselves as married is not alone sufficient to establish the existence of an agreement to be married.
Under federal law, a court may not treat military disability benefits as community property for purposes of property distribution in a Texas divorce case. A husband 
In a Texas divorce, a jury may decide issues regarding the characterization and valuation of property, but the judge is responsible for actually dividing the community property in a just and right manner. The court may consider a number of factors, including fault, education, ages and physical conditions, financial conditions, and the amount of separate property. Generally, the court must hold an evidentiary hearing or trial, unless the parties agree on the property division.
Retirement benefits can be a complex and contentious issue in a Texas divorce case. Generally, any income earned during marriage is considered community property unless proven to be separate property, including funds contributed to a retirement account or earned as pension benefits. In a recent case, a husband 
In a Texas divorce case, property acquired during the marriage is presumed to be community property. A spouse claiming property is their separate property must show that it is separate by clear and convincing evidence. Separate property is generally property that is owned before the marriage, property that the spouse acquired as a gift or inheritance, or property recovered as damages in a personal injury case. Community property is generally property acquired after the marriage that is not characterized as separate property.
