List all marital assets and debts, assign each to a party, and see the net estate balance. Utah uses equitable distribution — aim for a roughly equal split.
Utah is an equitable-distribution state, not a community-property one: marital property is divided fairly, which is usually but not always equally. Utah Code § 81-4-406(4) says the court may include equitable orders as to the parties' property, may, not shall, so a judge has real discretion, and a division the two of you agree to is the one that normally gets ordered. Marital property is generally what either of you acquired during the marriage, whichever name is on it; property owned before the marriage, and gifts or inheritances received by one spouse, are usually separate.
No. Utah is one of the majority of states that use equitable distribution. Community-property states split marital property 50/50 by default; Utah asks what is fair given the whole picture, which means an equal split is the common starting point rather than the rule. In practice most uncontested Utah divorces do divide the net marital estate roughly evenly, which is why this worksheet shows the equal share alongside the totals.
Generally, anything either spouse acquired between the date of marriage and the date of separation, income, the house, vehicles, bank and investment accounts, and retirement contributed to during the marriage, regardless of whose name is on the title or account. Property one spouse owned before the marriage, and gifts or inheritances to one spouse, are usually separate, but separate property can lose that character if it is mixed with marital money or if both spouses treat it as shared.
The same way as assets, equitably, and usually alongside them, because what matters is the net position each spouse walks away with rather than the assets alone. One thing the decree cannot do is bind a lender: if a joint card or loan is assigned to your spouse and they stop paying, the creditor can still come to you. Debts that have to be separated for real are refinanced, paid off, or closed, not just allocated on paper.
The portion contributed to during the marriage is marital property and is normally divided, but an employer plan does not divide just because the decree says so. A 401(k), 403(b) or pension needs a separate court order, a QDRO, sent to the plan administrator. An IRA does not: it moves by a trustee-to-trustee transfer incident to divorce. Getting that distinction wrong is what causes taxes and penalties nobody intended.
Whichever of you can afford it alone, or neither. There are three real outcomes: one spouse keeps it and buys the other out of their share of the equity, you sell and divide the proceeds, or you agree to sell later on a stated trigger. A buyout normally means refinancing, because taking a name off the deed does not take it off the mortgage, the lender is not a party to your divorce.