California’s FL-142, the Schedule of Assets and Debts, is the form each spouse uses during a divorce or legal separation to list every asset owned and every debt owed, along with each item’s value, acquisition date, and whether it is community or separate property. It accompanies the Declaration of Disclosure (Form FL-140) and gives your spouse a complete picture of the marital estate. California treats this exchange as mandatory, and the penalties for skipping it or understating the numbers can include losing your share of any asset you fail to report.1California Legislative Information. California Family Code Section 2104 Form FL-160 (Property Declaration) is an allowed alternative, but FL-142 is far more common because its structured columns make the classification process clearer.2California Courts. Schedule of Assets and Debts (FL-142)
Community Property or Separate Property
Every item you list on FL-142 has to be classified as either community or separate. The classification controls who ends up with it: California requires the court to divide the community estate equally, while separate property stays with the spouse who owns it.3California Legislative Information. California Family Code Section 2550
The general rule: anything acquired during the marriage while living in California is community property.4California Legislative Information. California Family Code Section 760 Separate property is anything you owned before the marriage, anything you received as a gift or inheritance during the marriage, and any income those separate assets produce.5California Legislative Information. California Family Code 770
The dividing line is the date of separation, which California defines as the date one spouse communicates an intent to end the marriage and acts consistently with that intent.6California Legislative Information. California Family Code FAM 70 Earnings after that date are generally separate. Earnings before it are community. That’s why the “Date Acquired” column does real work on the form: it tells the court which side of the line each item sits on.
Plenty of assets straddle the line. A 401(k) opened before marriage but funded during it has both components. A house bought before the wedding but paid down with marital income during the marriage builds a community interest inside otherwise separate property. For mixed assets, note both dates and flag the item for apportionment rather than forcing it into one category.
Documents to Gather Before You Start
Before writing anything on the form, pull the supporting records for every asset and debt you plan to list. FL-142 specifies the attachments each category requires, and missing documents are the fastest way to trigger a claim that your disclosure is incomplete.7California Courts. Schedule of Assets and Debts (Form FL-142)
- The last two years of federal and state tax returns, which the statute explicitly requires with your preliminary disclosure.1California Legislative Information. California Family Code Section 2104
- Deeds with legal descriptions and the most recent lender’s statement for each piece of real estate.
- Title documents for vehicles, boats, and trailers.
- The latest statement for every savings, checking, and credit union account, with the account name, number, institution, and branch.
- The declaration page for each life insurance policy that has cash surrender or loan value.
- Certificate numbers and the latest statement for stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and secured notes.
- The most recent summary plan document and benefit statement for pensions and employer plans, plus the latest statement for IRAs, deferred compensation, annuities, and profit-sharing accounts.
- The most current K-1 and Schedule C for any partnership or business ownership interest.
- The latest statement for all unsecured loans, plus creditor name, address, and account number for every credit card.
If you hold accounts jointly with someone other than your spouse, include those too. The form’s instructions don’t limit disclosure to marital accounts.
How to Complete Each Column
The form is organized into numbered categories, each with columns for the item description, the date acquired, its character, its gross fair market value, and the amount of any debt secured by it. The columns answer five questions: What is it? When did you get it? Whose is it? What is it worth? How much do you owe on it?
Item Description
Be specific enough that anyone reading the form could identify the exact asset. For real estate, list the full street address. For vehicles, include year, make, and model. For bank accounts, list the institution name, branch, and account number. Vague entries like “checking account” or “car” create disputes that a few extra words would have prevented.
Date Acquired
The acquisition date establishes whether the asset is community or separate. For items purchased before the marriage, enter the original purchase date. For items bought during the marriage, the purchase date still matters because it confirms the community character. For retirement accounts that span both periods, enter the date the account was originally opened and note that it contains pre-marital contributions.
Gross Fair Market Value
Enter what the asset would sell for on the open market today, not what you paid for it. For bank and investment accounts, the current balance on the most recent statement is typically the value. For real estate, an appraisal or recent comparable sales data is more reliable than a guess. For household items, use current resale value, which is almost always far below what you originally spent. California generally requires valuation as close to the trial date as possible, so keep the figures current.
Amount of Debt
For each asset carrying a loan or lien, list the payoff balance. The difference between fair market value and debt is the net equity available for division. A house worth $750,000 with a $500,000 mortgage has $250,000 in community equity. A car worth $20,000 with $25,000 owed is underwater, and that negative equity matters too because it’s a community liability.
Characterization
Mark each item “C” for community or “S” for separate. If you and your spouse disagree about an asset’s character, note it on the form and be prepared to address it in negotiation or at trial. This column states your position, not a final ruling.
Attachment Checkbox
A small box appears next to each category. Check it for every item where you’re attaching the supporting documents. Checking the box confirms you’ve included the actual statements, titles, or declarations rather than writing numbers from memory. If a category doesn’t apply, write “none” so it’s clear you didn’t skip it by accident.
Valuing Assets Without an Obvious Price
Bank balances are easy. A small business, a professional practice, or a defined-benefit pension is not. Hard-to-value assets are where FL-142 disclosures most often break down.
For the family home or a rental property, a professional residential appraisal gives you a defensible number. The appraiser inspects the property and compares it to recent sales of similar homes. The cost typically runs several hundred dollars, worth it when you’re arguing over equity in the most valuable asset most families own.
For a private business, the form requires the most current K-1 and Schedule C, but those documents alone don’t say what the business is worth as an ongoing concern. Forensic accountants and business valuation experts use three approaches: an asset-based method that totals what the business owns minus what it owes, a market method that looks at comparable sales, and an income method that projects future earnings and discounts them to present value. The income method is the most commonly used for operating businesses, and a competent expert will consider all three and explain which fits best.
A 401(k) or IRA with a clear account balance can be valued from the latest statement. A defined-benefit pension is harder because its value depends on actuarial calculations involving the employee’s age, years of service, and projected life expectancy. If your spouse has a traditional pension, you may need an actuary to calculate present value for the form. The date acquired column matters especially here, because many retirement accounts contain both pre-marital and marital contributions that eventually need separation.
Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets
Digital currencies and other blockchain-based assets must be disclosed on FL-142 like any other property. They create unique verification challenges because they can be moved quickly and are sometimes held in personal wallets with no centralized custodian.
Tax records are the starting point. IRS Form 1040 asks about virtual currency transactions, and Schedule D and Form 8949 report capital gains from crypto sales. U.S.-based exchanges may issue 1099 forms for users above certain thresholds. Bank and brokerage statements can reveal deposits to or withdrawals from exchanges even when a spouse doesn’t voluntarily disclose crypto holdings.
For assets held on centralized exchanges like Coinbase or Gemini, the exchange holds transaction histories and current balances that can be subpoenaed. Assets held in personal wallets are trickier but not invisible. Every transaction on a public blockchain leaves a permanent record, and forensic analysts can trace those footprints to uncover holdings a spouse may be trying to hide. If you suspect significant undisclosed crypto, a specialist usually pays for itself.
Serving the Form and the Deadlines
Filling out the form is only half the job. You also have to serve it on your spouse within set timelines and prove to the court that service happened.
The petitioner (the spouse who filed) must serve the preliminary disclosure either at the same time as the petition or within 60 days of filing it. The respondent must serve their disclosure either with the response or within 60 days of filing the response. Both deadlines can be extended by written agreement or court order.1California Legislative Information. California Family Code Section 2104
You deliver FL-142 and all attachments to your spouse or their attorney. This is formal legal service, not a casual hand-off. The form itself is not filed with the court, which keeps sensitive information like account numbers and balances out of the public record. You instead file Form FL-141 to tell the court that the exchange happened.8California Courts. Declaration Regarding Service of Declaration of Disclosure and Income and Expense Declaration (FL-141) The court won’t grant a final judgment until it sees FL-141 from both sides.
California also requires a second round of disclosure, the final declaration, served before you sign a settlement agreement or at least 45 days before trial. The final declaration updates the preliminary one with any changes since the initial exchange.9California Legislative Information. California Family Code FAM 2105 Both spouses can skip the final declaration by filing Form FL-144, a joint stipulation and waiver, but each spouse must confirm under penalty of perjury that preliminary disclosures were exchanged, current income and expense declarations were exchanged, and all material financial information has been fully updated since the preliminary round.10Judicial Council of California. Stipulation and Waiver of Final Declaration of Disclosure (Form FL-144) The waiver covers the paperwork, not the underlying duty to disclose.
Penalties for Incomplete or Dishonest Disclosure
This is where the system has real teeth, and it’s the reason to take FL-142 seriously even when a divorce feels amicable. The consequences operate at two levels.
If you fail to comply with disclosure requirements, the court must impose monetary sanctions sufficient to deter the behavior, including the other spouse’s attorney’s fees and costs. The court can also bar you from presenting evidence on issues you should have covered, which effectively means losing those issues by default. If a judgment is entered while disclosure requirements remain unfulfilled, the court is required to set it aside. The statute is explicit that failure to comply with disclosure rules is not harmless error.11California Legislative Information. California Family Code Section 2107
Separately, when a spouse breaches the fiduciary duty each spouse owes the other by concealing or transferring community property, the court can award the other spouse 50% of the undisclosed asset, plus attorney’s fees and court costs. The asset is valued at the highest of three figures: its value on the date of the breach, the date it was sold or disposed of, or the date of the award.12California Legislative Information. California Family Code Section 1101 That fiduciary duty attaches at the date of separation and lasts until every community asset and liability has been distributed.13California Legislative Information. California Family Code FAM 2102
When concealment rises to the level of fraud, oppression, or malice, the penalty doubles to 100% of the hidden asset.12California Legislative Information. California Family Code Section 1101 The story doesn’t end at judgment either. The court retains continuing jurisdiction to divide any community asset omitted from the original proceedings, so a hidden account that surfaces years later can still be brought back before the court and divided equally.14California Legislative Information. California Family Code 2556
What FL-142 Does Not Resolve
The form captures what you have and what it’s worth. It doesn’t allocate the tax consequences, and it doesn’t itself move money between retirement accounts. Two points are worth knowing before you negotiate off the values you entered.
First, property transfers between spouses incident to divorce are generally tax-free under federal law, but the recipient takes over the transferor’s original tax basis rather than a stepped-up basis.15Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1041 – Transfers of Property Between Spouses or Incident to Divorce A $100,000 brokerage account with a low basis and a $100,000 savings account are not equally valuable at the point of eventual sale. The fair market value you enter on FL-142 doesn’t reflect that difference.
Second, dividing an employer-sponsored retirement plan like a 401(k) or pension requires a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO) in addition to the divorce judgment. Without one, the plan administrator has no authority to pay anything to the non-employee spouse.16U.S. Department of Labor. Qualified Domestic Relations Orders Under ERISA – A Practical Guide to Dividing Retirement Benefits IRAs don’t use QDROs; they’re split by trustee-to-trustee transfer, and taking the money out instead of transferring it directly will trigger the 10% early withdrawal penalty if you’re under 59½.17Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plans FAQs Regarding IRAs Distributions (Withdrawals) Have the plan administrator pre-approve a draft QDRO before the judge signs the final judgment; plans routinely reject orders that don’t match their formatting rules, and fixing it after the fact is slow and expensive.