Divorce and Separation Agreements

North Carolina Divorce Law Divorce and Separation Answers
1

I have a few more questions on divorce and separation agreements. My soon to be ex-wife and I have elected to have the Separation Agreement and divorce forms signed concurrently (we have already been separated over one year) and elected to not have the Separation Agreement incorporated as part of the divorce. In reading over the sample Separation Agreement posted on this website, I have a few additional questions:

  1. Under Section 8 Tangible Personal Property Located at Marital Residence, the third and fourth sentences of that paragraph read “Thus, all of the furniture, appliances, and other articles of tangible persona property presently located in and around the marital residence shall be and become the sole and separate property of John. Mary hereby relinquishes any and all claims he may have in and to the same.” Is this supposed to read “Mary hereby relinquishes any and all claims SHE may have in and to the same”? Just want to make sure I understand this section correctly.

  2. Section 27 refers to a Memorandum of Agreement in order to protect the privacy of both parties. How does this Memorandum differ from the Separation Agreement? Does the Memorandum incorporate the Separation Agreement by reference, just without the specific details? We have elected to not have the Separation Agreement incorporated into the divorce. Would the Memorandum of Agreement need to be incorporated with the divorce or would both the Memorandum and the Separation Agreement simply be instruments in the event of a future disagreement in the distribution of marital property?

Thank you for your help!

2

You are correct, the ‘he’ instead of ‘she’ looks to be a typo.

Some people opt to record a memorandum of their Separation Agreement, the memorandum is simply a truncated version of the agreement. What you record at the register of deeds becomes a matter of public record, so you’d want to avoid recording the entire agreement if it had sensitive financial information. You really only need to record a memorandum of the agreement if you intend on purchasing real property before you obtain your absolute divorce. In that case you would include a free trader clause in the memorandum.