mark zuckerberg marriage property | Pennsylvania Family Law Blog - The Law Offices of Sheryl R. Rentz

How the New Marriage of Mark Zuckerberg, Founder of Facebook, May Affect His Assets in a Divorce

By Sheryl Rentz on May 30, 2012

Mark Zuckerberg, the infamous founder of the popular social networking site Facebook, married his college sweetheart on May 19 in a backyard ceremony in California. The timing of the nuptials has raised some eyebrows, however, as the wedding happened a day after Facebook went public, and some are wondering if this had anything to do with the terms of a prenuptial agreement or if Zuckerberg was looking to clarify his net worth (estimated at $17 billion), according to The New York Times. Regardless of the actual reasons for the timing of the wedding, matrimonial law experts are clear that whatever the Facebook founder earned before marriage is still his property afterward.

The state of California follows community property laws, which specifically outline how property is divided between two spouses in the event of a divorce, and the general rule states that anything that was a spouse’s property before marriage is considered separate. This “property” can include things like dividends from previously owned stock or rent collected from an income-producing property owned before marriage. After a pair is married, anything either spouse acquires or earns is considered community property. Read the rest »