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Does money from before your marriage still belong to you?

On Behalf of | Jun 27, 2024 | Divorce And Child Custody

Before you got married, you’d saved up a certain amount of money that you brought with you to the marriage. Maybe you had an investment portfolio with $100,000 in it. This was not a marital asset because you weren’t married yet, so it was technically a separate asset that you already personally owned when you decided to tie the knot.

Fast forward a few years, and you and your spouse have decided that you’re going to get divorced. What you want to know is if the $100,000 that you owned before the marriage still belongs to you, or if you have to divide it with your ex.

How did you use the money?

It really depends on what you did with the money during your marriage. For instance, maybe you just left it in the same investment portfolio and you changed nothing. Your spouse didn’t have a right to it, didn’t have access to it and never contributed to the account. Odds are that it’s still a separate asset and you can just keep it during the divorce.

But say that you used the money to purchase a family home. You took it out of your investments and bought a house together. Doing this commingles your assets, so the money you invested now counts as a marital asset.

Additionally, you may have simply allowed your spouse to contribute to the account or access it and use the money during the marriage, even if you didn’t buy a major asset like a house. This can also combine those assets and change their status.

As you can see, property division is often very complicated, and it’s important to know exactly what legal steps to take.