{"id":2808,"date":"2024-02-09T22:19:09","date_gmt":"2024-02-10T04:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/?p=2808"},"modified":"2024-02-14T08:25:58","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T14:25:58","slug":"texas-court-made-improper-substantive-change-to-property-division-with-order-striking-dollar-amounts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/texas-court-made-improper-substantive-change-to-property-division-with-order-striking-dollar-amounts\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Court Made Improper Substantive Change to Property Division with Order Striking Dollar Amounts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A trial court in a Texas divorce retains subject matter jurisdiction to enforce a decree or to clarify ambiguity in the decree.\u00a0 Texas strongly favors finality of judgment, so the court may not make substantive changes to the property division in a divorce decree once it has become final.\u00a0 The court does not have the authority to \u201camend, modify, alter, or change\u201d the final property division despite errors in characterizing the property or applying the law. \u00a0\u00a0The court may, however, issue orders to clarify an ambiguous decree or to enforce the decree.\u00a0 A court interprets a Texas divorce decree according to the plain language of the decree. The court must interpret the decree as a whole and give effect to all provisions.\u00a0 A former wife recently <a href=\"https:\/\/cases.justia.com\/texas\/second-court-of-appeals\/2024-02-23-00159-cv.pdf?ts=1706264632\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">challenged<\/a> a court order purporting to clarify the final divorce decree, arguing it substantively changed the property division.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Divorce Decree and Subsequent Order<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The trial court filed with the clerk and sent the parties a letter rendering the property division following the bench trial.\u00a0 The letter awarded to the wife as separate property 50% of three specified accounts and 50% of any stocks, options, or retirement accounts that were not listed in the letter but had vested as of a specified date.\u00a0 The court directed the husband\u2019s counsel to draft a decree comporting with the letter rendition.<\/p>\n<p>The husband\u2019s attorney added details that were not expressly included in the letter. He specified the date when the balances would be calculated for the property division and included a dollar amount for each account.\u00a0 The parties\u2019 attorneys approved the draft divorce decree as to form.\u00a0 The trial court signed the decree as drafted by the husband\u2019s attorney.\u00a0 The decree became final without either party appealing.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/texas-court-made-improper-substantive-change-to-property-division-with-order-striking-dollar-amounts\/#more-2808\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A trial court in a Texas divorce retains subject matter jurisdiction to enforce a decree or to clarify ambiguity in the decree.\u00a0 Texas strongly favors finality of judgment, so the court may not make substantive changes to the property division in a divorce decree once it has become final.\u00a0 The court does not have the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,491,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-divorce","category-enforcement","category-property"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Texas Court Made Improper Substantive Change to Property Division with Order Striking Dollar Amounts &#8212; Texas Divorce Attorney Blog &#8212; February 9, 2024<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A trial court in a Texas divorce retains subject matter jurisdiction to enforce a decree or to clarify ambiguity in the decree.\u00a0 Texas strongly favors &#8212; February 9, 2024\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/texas-court-made-improper-substantive-change-to-property-division-with-order-striking-dollar-amounts\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Texas Court Made Improper Substantive Change to Property Division with Order Striking Dollar Amounts &#8212; Texas Divorce Attorney Blog &#8212; February 9, 2024\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"A trial court in a Texas divorce retains subject matter jurisdiction to enforce a decree or to clarify ambiguity in the decree.\u00a0 Texas strongly favors &#8212; February 9, 2024\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kelly McClure\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Texas Court Made Improper Substantive Change to Property Division with Order Striking Dollar Amounts &#8212; Texas Divorce Attorney Blog &#8212; February 9, 2024","description":"A trial court in a Texas divorce retains subject matter jurisdiction to enforce a decree or to clarify ambiguity in the decree.\u00a0 Texas strongly favors &#8212; February 9, 2024","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/texas-court-made-improper-substantive-change-to-property-division-with-order-striking-dollar-amounts\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Texas Court Made Improper Substantive Change to Property Division with Order Striking Dollar Amounts &#8212; Texas Divorce Attorney Blog &#8212; February 9, 2024","twitter_description":"A trial court in a Texas divorce retains subject matter jurisdiction to enforce a decree or to clarify ambiguity in the decree.\u00a0 Texas strongly favors &#8212; February 9, 2024","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Kelly McClure","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/texas-court-made-improper-substantive-change-to-property-division-with-order-striking-dollar-amounts\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/texas-court-made-improper-substantive-change-to-property-division-with-order-striking-dollar-amounts\/"},"author":{"name":"Kelly McClure","@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d242451d01f4b8ae44c765b4296b15f1"},"headline":"Texas Court Made Improper Substantive Change to Property Division with Order Striking Dollar Amounts","datePublished":"2024-02-10T04:19:09+00:00","dateModified":"2024-02-14T14:25:58+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/texas-court-made-improper-substantive-change-to-property-division-with-order-striking-dollar-amounts\/"},"wordCount":906,"articleSection":["Divorce","Enforcement","Property"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/texas-court-made-improper-substantive-change-to-property-division-with-order-striking-dollar-amounts\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/texas-court-made-improper-substantive-change-to-property-division-with-order-striking-dollar-amounts\/","name":"Texas Court Made Improper Substantive Change to Property Division with Order Striking Dollar Amounts &#8212; 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