California FL-142: Schedule of Assets, Debts, and Disclosure Rules

California’s FL-142, the Schedule of Assets and Debts, is the form you use in a divorce or legal separation to list everything you own and everything you owe. It travels with your Declaration of Disclosure (Form FL-140) and gives your spouse a full picture of the marital estate. California treats this exchange as mandatory. Skipping items, guessing at values, or missing the deadline can cost you your share of an asset entirely, so the work you put in on this form is not paperwork for its own sake.¹ Form FL-160 (Property Declaration) is an accepted alternative, but FL-142 is more common because its column layout forces you to classify each item as you go.²

Documents to Gather Before You Start

FL-142 asks for attachments in almost every category. Pull the records first, because a form filled from memory is the fastest way to create a dispute about whether your disclosure was complete.³

Federal and state tax returns for the last two years, which the statute requires with the preliminary disclosure.¹
Deeds with legal descriptions and the most recent lender statement for each property.
Titles for every vehicle, boat, and trailer.
The most recent statement for each savings, checking, and credit union account, showing the institution, branch, and account number.
Declaration pages for life insurance policies that carry cash surrender or loan value.
Certificate numbers and current statements for stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and secured notes.
The latest benefit statement and summary plan document for pensions and employer retirement plans, plus current statements for IRAs, annuities, deferred compensation, and profit-sharing accounts.
The most current K-1 and Schedule C for any business ownership.
Recent statements for unsecured loans, and the creditor name, address, and account number for every credit card.

Include jointly held accounts even when the other holder is not your spouse. The instructions don’t limit disclosure to marital accounts.

How to Fill Out Each Section

Each numbered category has columns for the item description, the date you acquired it, its character (community or separate), its gross fair market value, and any debt secured by it. Five questions, in other words: what is it, when did you get it, whose is it, what’s it worth, and how much is owed on it.

Item Description

Write specifically enough that a stranger could identify the exact asset. Full street address for real estate. Year, make, and model for a vehicle. Institution, branch, and account number for a bank account. “Checking account” and “car” are the kinds of entries that generate later fights over what was actually disclosed.

Date Acquired

This column establishes whether the asset is community or separate. For items owned before the marriage, enter the original purchase date. For items bought during the marriage, the date confirms community character. For retirement accounts that span both periods, enter the date the account was opened and note that it contains pre-marital contributions.

Gross Fair Market Value

Enter what the asset would sell for today, not what you paid. For bank and investment accounts, the current statement balance is usually the value. For real estate, use an appraisal or recent comparable sales rather than a guess. For household goods, use resale value, which is almost always well below purchase price. California generally values assets as close to the trial date as possible, so use the most current figures you have.

Amount of Debt

For each asset with a loan or lien, enter the payoff balance. The difference between fair market value and debt is net equity. A house worth $750,000 with a $500,000 mortgage carries $250,000 in equity. A car worth $20,000 with $25,000 owed is underwater, and the negative equity still needs to be captured as a community liability.

Characterization

Mark each item “C” for community or “S” for separate. If you and your spouse disagree, note the disagreement on the form. The column reflects your position, not a final ruling.

Attachment Checkbox

Check the small box next to each category where you’re attaching the supporting documents. If a category doesn’t apply, write “none” so it’s clear you didn’t overlook it.

Community Property or Separate Property

The character column decides how each item gets divided, so the classification matters. California requires the community estate to be split equally, while separate property stays with its owner.⁴

The general rule: anything acquired during the marriage while living in California is community property.⁵ Separate property is what you owned before the marriage, plus anything received during the marriage as a gift or inheritance, plus income from those separate assets.⁶

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.⁷ Earnings before that date are community; earnings after are generally separate.

Plenty of assets straddle the line. A 401(k) opened before marriage and funded during it has both components. A home bought before the wedding but paid down with marital income during the marriage creates a community interest in what would otherwise be separate property. When an asset is mixed, list both relevant dates and flag it for apportionment rather than forcing it into one bucket.

Valuing Assets That Don’t Have a Simple Price Tag

Bank balances are easy. A closely held business, a professional practice, or a defined-benefit pension is not. These are where FL-142 disclosures most often break down.

Real Estate

A residential appraisal gives you a defensible number for the family home. The appraiser inspects the property and compares it to recent sales of similar homes. The cost typically runs a few hundred dollars, which is worth spending when you’re arguing over the largest asset most families own.

Business Interests

The form requires the latest K-1 and Schedule C, but those documents don’t show what a business is worth as a going concern. Valuation experts generally use three approaches: an asset-based method, a market method comparing recent sales of similar businesses, and an income method projecting future earnings and discounting them to present value. The income method is the most commonly used for operating businesses. A qualified expert will consider all three and explain which fits best.

Retirement Accounts

A 401(k) or IRA statement balance is straightforward. A traditional defined-benefit pension is harder because its value depends on actuarial calculations tied to age, years of service, and life expectancy. If your spouse has that kind of pension, you may need an actuary to calculate the present value for the form. The date-acquired column matters here too, because most retirement accounts contain both pre-marital and marital contributions that eventually need to be separated.

Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets

Digital currencies must be disclosed on FL-142 like any other property. Because these assets can move quickly and are sometimes held in personal wallets without a centralized custodian, they raise verification challenges the other categories don’t.

Start with tax records. 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 1099s for users above certain thresholds. Bank and brokerage statements can also reveal deposits to or withdrawals from exchanges even when a spouse doesn’t voluntarily mention crypto holdings.

Assets on centralized exchanges like Coinbase or Gemini can be subpoenaed; the exchange holds transaction history and current balances. Personal-wallet holdings are trickier but not invisible, because every transaction on a public blockchain leaves a permanent record that forensic analysts can trace. If you suspect significant undisclosed crypto, a specialist is often the right hire.

When and How to Serve the Form

Completing FL-142 is only half the job. You have to serve it on your spouse on time, and prove to the court that you did.

Deadlines

The petitioner must serve the preliminary disclosure with the petition or within 60 days of filing it. The respondent must serve theirs with the response or within 60 days of filing the response. Written agreement or court order can extend these deadlines.¹

Method of Service

You deliver FL-142 and all attachments to your spouse or their attorney. This is formal legal service. The form itself is not filed with the court, which keeps account numbers and balances out of the public record. Instead, you file Form FL-141 (Declaration Regarding Service of Declaration of Disclosure) to tell the court the exchange happened.⁸ The court will not enter a final judgment until both sides have filed that FL-141.

The Final Disclosure

California also requires a final declaration of disclosure served before you sign a settlement agreement or at least 45 days before trial. The final declaration updates the preliminary one for any changes in your financial picture since the first exchange.⁹

Waiving the Final Disclosure

If both spouses agree they’ve already exchanged enough, they can waive the final disclosure by filing Form FL-144, a joint stipulation. It isn’t a rubber stamp. Both parties must confirm under penalty of perjury that they completed and exchanged preliminary disclosures, exchanged current income and expense declarations, and fully updated all material financial information since the preliminary round.¹⁰

Waiving the final disclosure does not waive the underlying duty to disclose. It’s a statement that the duty has already been fulfilled. If it hasn’t, the court can set the judgment aside later.

Penalties for Incomplete or Dishonest Disclosure

This is where the system has real teeth. Even in an amicable divorce, the consequences of a bad disclosure operate at two levels.

Monetary Sanctions and Evidentiary Preclusion

If you fail to comply with disclosure requirements, the court must impose monetary sanctions large enough 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, meaning you effectively lose the argument on those topics by default.¹¹

If a judgment is entered while disclosure requirements remain unfulfilled, the court is required to set it aside. The statute treats noncompliance as more than harmless error.¹¹

Forfeiting the Hidden Asset

When a spouse breaches their fiduciary duty by concealing or transferring community property, the court can award the other spouse 50% of the undisclosed asset, plus attorney’s fees and costs. The asset is valued at whichever figure is highest among three dates: the date of the breach, the date the asset was sold or disposed of, or the date of the award.¹²

When the concealment involves fraud, oppression, or malice, the award doubles to 100% of the hidden asset.¹² The exposure doesn’t end at judgment. The court keeps continuing jurisdiction to divide any community asset omitted from the original proceedings, so an account that surfaces years later can still be brought back and split.¹³

Both spouses owe each other a fiduciary duty starting at the date of separation and running until every community asset and liability has been distributed. That duty covers full disclosure of assets, debts, income, and expenses, and it extends to any new investment or business opportunity growing out of marital efforts, even one that surfaces after separation.¹⁴ The obligation carries the same weight as the duty business partners owe each other.

Listing a Retirement Account Is Not the Same as Dividing It

FL-142 discloses retirement accounts; it doesn’t divide them. If an employer-sponsored plan such as a 401(k) or pension is going to be split, you need a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO). Without one, the plan administrator has no legal authority to move money to the non-employee spouse.

Federal law requires a QDRO to include four elements: the name and mailing address of the participant and the alternate payee, the dollar amount or percentage being assigned, the number of payments or the period involved, and the name of each plan covered.¹⁵ The order cannot require the plan to pay benefits in a form the plan doesn’t offer or pay more than the plan provides.¹⁶

IRAs don’t use QDROs. You transfer the awarded portion directly by changing the name on the account or through a trustee-to-trustee transfer. An indirect rollover, where you take the money out and redeposit it into the other spouse’s IRA within 60 days, does not qualify for tax-free treatment. If you’re under 59½ and a court orders you to withdraw from an IRA and pay the funds to your ex rather than transfer them, you’ll still owe the 10% early withdrawal penalty.¹⁷

Get the QDRO drafted and pre-approved by the plan administrator before the judge signs the final judgment. Plans routinely reject orders that don’t meet their specific formatting requirements, and fixing that after the divorce is expensive.

1
California Legislative Information. California Family Code Section 2104
2
California Courts. Schedule of Assets and Debts (FL-142)
3
California Courts. Schedule of Assets and Debts (Form FL-142)
4
California Legislative Information. California Family Code Section 2550
5
California Legislative Information. California Family Code Section 760
6
California Legislative Information. California Family Code 770
7
California Legislative Information. California Family Code FAM 70
8
California Courts. Declaration Regarding Service of Declaration of Disclosure and Income and Expense Declaration (FL-141)
9
California Legislative Information. California Family Code FAM 2105
10
Judicial Council of California. Stipulation and Waiver of Final Declaration of Disclosure (Form FL-144)
11
California Legislative Information. California Family Code Section 2107
12
California Legislative Information. California Family Code Section 1101
13
California Legislative Information. California Family Code 2556
14
California Legislative Information. California Family Code FAM 2102
15
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 1056 – Conditions for Assignment or Alienation of Plan Benefits
16
U.S. Department of Labor. Qualified Domestic Relations Orders Under ERISA – A Practical Guide to Dividing Retirement Benefits
17
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Plans FAQs Regarding IRAs Distributions (Withdrawals)