Social media accounts like Twitter and Facebook are beginning to take their place in the pantheon of highly contested properties for divorcing couples in California. As we all know, couples dissolving their marriages divide a wide range of assets already – everything from cars and homes to stock options, businesses and artwork. The unavoidable fact is that social media accounts are property, and as the value of such property increases, so too will the litigation surrounding them.

In California, absent a prenup, any asset acquired during marriage is considered community property and must be divided evenly between divorcing spouses. Any property acquired before marriage, after the date of separation, or through gift or bequest (meaning inheritance) is considered separate property and immune from division. There are of course exceptions to these rules, but that’s a good overview.

By this definition, social media accounts created during marriage will almost certainly be characterized as community property. Accounts created prior to marriage may also be defined as community property in part, depending on whether the value increased during the marriage, and whether the personal effort of either spouse contributed to that increase (which of course it would have).

The terms of service of the various social media companies also play a role in defining whether an account is considered property and subject to division. Twitter, for example, defines the content which users create as the property of the user. Twitter sees the content as separate from the account services themselves which Twitter provides. Arguably, the right to access the account and manipulate the content is a kind of property as well.

The content within the accounts, and the right to access the accounts both increasingly have economic value, and couples understandably want to add all value to the marital asset division calculus.

The big hurdle, of course, is valuing the accounts. Valuation has always been more of an art than a science. This is even more the case when it comes to untested intellectual property assets like social media accounts. Some parties are looking to the actual business flowing from the accounts as a benchmark for determining value. Others are more inclined to take a multiple of earnings – the challenge being that earnings are just beginning to manifest for these assets.

This area of property division is new, but it’s heating up. Asset division provides many challenges to divorcing couples. Careful attention needs to be paid to properly value and divide IP, particularly this distinctly tricky type of IP. A person seeking to divide a social media account, just like any asset, is well advised to seek the counsel of an experienced California family law attorney.

Our office practices family law in San Francisco and the Bay Area. As a result, we work on the forefront of many of these issues. If you have questions, feel free to give us a call.

Does it matter that he was cheating with his secretary for half the marriage?  What about the fact that she was never home for dinner and spent all her time at the office?  Guess what… In a California divorce, the answer is no.

California is a no-fault divorce state.  That means the court has no interest in who you think is to blame for the downfall of the marriage.  California courts do not want to hear about the lying, the cheating, the fact that he never listened, or that she was constantly nagging.  On the Petition for Dissolution of Marriage (one of the forms you file to get a divorce or “dissolution” started in California), there are only two optional grounds for a dissolution: Irreconcilable Differences, or Incurable Insanity.   That’s it.  Irreconcilable differences means that blame doesn’t apply.  Incurable Insanity means that you can prove by competent medical testimony that your spouse was incurably insane while you were married.

A related concern amongst parties is whether a judge will view one spouse in a better light because he or she filed first.  The reality is that judges do not care who files for dissolution first.  There may be other strategic effects to filing at different times, and you should discuss these with your California Divorce Lawyer.

One great advantage of a no-fault divorce system is that you don’t waste time and money proving blame, or cruelty, or infidelity, as in some states.   This is not the case everywhere.  Take, for example, supermodel Christie Brinkley’s recent divorce in New York State.  Through the course of that trial, the court allowed Ms. Brinkley to expose publicly husband Peter Cook’s tawdry affair with his 18 year-old assistant, as well as his addiction to pornography.  This kind of dirty laundry usually has no place in a California divorce.  Instead, you and your California divorce lawyer can focus on the legal issues: property division, support, and child custody if there are children involved.

One important exception to the no-fault divorce rule is a situation involving domestic violence.  The topic of domestic violence is outside the scope of this blog posting, but suffice it to say that California courts take domestic violence very seriously.  If you are in immediate danger, you should contact the police immediately and make sure you are safe.  If you have been a victim of domestic violence in the past, you should contact a competent California family lawyer to discuss your options.

A no-fault divorce means it’s not about who did or said what to whom during the marriage.  It’s about getting the divorce completed by applying community property, custody, and support laws, so you can leave the skeletons in the closet and out of the courtroom.