You know that getting divorced means you and your spouse will have to split the money you earned during the marriage. You both worked and your income from that time counts as a marital asset. It doesn’t necessarily matter who had the higher salary. These are shared assets, along with things like cars, a family home, a vacation property or a retirement plan.
But what about the assets you owned before you got married? Do you still get to keep those after divorce, since you brought them to the marriage initially?
Were the assets commingled?
One of the biggest questions to ask is whether or not you commingled those assets with others that were owned by your spouse. Commingling means mixing the assets together. If you did, then you may have to divide them.
Say that you had $200,000 when you got married. If you put that money in an investment portfolio under your name, and neither you nor your spouse touched it during the marriage, you likely get to keep your money after the divorce.
However, if you put the $200,000 in a shared investment account – or just into a shared bank account – then you have commingled it, and your spouse may deserve a portion of the money. They can claim that they had access to it during the marriage, turning it into marital property, which is then subject to property division rules.
Things like this can get complicated, especially if you and your spouse disagree about the status of the funds. Take the time to look into your legal options during a dispute.