Who keeps the house, and everything else you own

Start with the fact that surprises most people: India has no community of property. Marriage does not merge what the two of you own. There is no pot to be split down the middle, and no court will divide your assets simply because the marriage has ended.

What decides where things go is ownership, and then what the two of you agree.

The flat

Whose name is on it is where every conversation starts.

If it is in one name and was bought from that person's own funds, it is theirs. If it is in joint names, both of you have a share. If it is in one name but the other contributed to the purchase or the instalments, the contributing spouse can claim a share — and will need to prove the contribution, which means bank statements, not recollection.

Then there is the loan. A home loan does not follow the divorce; it follows the borrowers. If you are a co-borrower or a guarantor, the bank's claim on you survives any agreement between the two of you. A settlement that says one spouse "will pay the EMI" protects you from the other spouse, not from the bank. The only thing that removes you is the lender releasing you, usually through a transfer or a refinance — and that needs the bank's consent, which takes time and should begin before the settlement is signed, not after.

A workable settlement clause on a flat answers four questions: who keeps it, from when, who carries the loan, and what happens if it is sold within a stated period.

Jewellery, and what stridhan means

Stridhan is property a woman receives before, during or after the marriage — gifts from her family or her husband's, jewellery, cash, what was given at the wedding. It is her absolute property. A husband or his family holding it does not acquire it, and she can claim its return.

In practice this is the most disputed item in Indian matrimonial matters and the hardest to prove, because jewellery is rarely documented. Photographs from the wedding, purchase bills, insurance schedules and locker records are what make a stridhan claim real.

Anything documented, list it in the settlement. Anything genuinely joint — furniture, a car, appliances — is faster to allocate than to argue about.

Accounts and investments

Whose name, whose money. A joint account is held by both; a single account is not made joint by marriage.

What the settlement should do is close the loops: joint accounts closed or transferred, each party removed as a nominee or signatory where that is intended, investments listed with who keeps them, and a date by which all of it is done. Nominations are the thing everybody forgets — an ex-spouse who remains the nominee on a policy or a fund usually stays the nominee until somebody changes it.

What a court will and will not do

In a mutual consent divorce, a court reads your settlement to satisfy itself the agreement is genuine and not unconscionable. It does not redistribute your property. That is the whole point of settling: you decide, and the court records it.

In a contested matter, claims about property are litigated on ownership and contribution, which is slower, more expensive and less predictable than deciding it between yourselves.

Maintenance is a separate question from property, though the two are traded against each other constantly in negotiation — a larger share of the flat against a smaller monthly figure, or a lump sum instead of both. That is legitimate, and it is where a settlement either becomes durable or falls apart later. See how maintenance is actually decided.

Writing it so it holds

• Describe each asset properly — address, registration or account number, whose name
• Say who keeps it, and from when
• Deal with the loan separately from the ownership, and say who pays it
• Give every step a date
• Say what happens on default, and on sale
• List what is being returned, particularly jewellery, and when

A settlement written in intentions rather than dates is the most common reason a mutual consent matter is sent to mediation and loses three months.

What to do next

Work out the split first — the settlement agreement sets out what each term has to say — then have it written properly — a guided session is fifty minutes with an advocate and your settlement drafted for your own court.