Divorce and Property Owned Prior to Marriage
When you're getting a divorce, one of your primary concerns is the division of property.
All of the marital property needs to be accounted for and then divided between the two spouses in a roughly equitable fashion.
So you may be concerned about what rights your spouse has to any property you owned before you entered the marriage.
Does he or she have any rights to it? And if so, is it possible that he or she may wind up getting possession of it in the divorce? Pre-Marriage Property With few exceptions, any property that can be considered owned jointly by both spouses is eligible for division during the divorce.
This includes roughly everything that you brought into the marriage, from investments to real estate to actual possessions.
A prenuptial agreement is a good way to protect any property you owned prior to the marriage from being divided in a divorce.
Prenups, as they are called, usually have provisions about the division of property and alimony payments.
A postnuptial agreement is a similar document, entered into after a marriage.
The legality of prenuptial and postnuptial agreements varies from case to case, so discussing your agreement with a divorce lawyer can be beneficial.
It is also possible to keep property from being considered joint property without the help of a prenuptial agreement, although this is much more difficult, and may depend on what state you live in.
In general, you can privately keep property such as:
Bank accounts can be kept separate from spouses, but this requires maintaining it separately from a marital interest.
To do this, you must not have your spouse on the account.
Even still, an increase in overall value (such as increased investment, or interest paid on the account) may be considered owned by both spouses.
Again, it can be very helpful to discuss your situation with a divorce lawyer to ensure that you don't accidentally turn your property into marital property.
To learn more about what property can become marital property and how to retain possession of your property following a divorce, visit the West Palm Beach divorce lawyers of Eric N.
Klein & Associates.
All of the marital property needs to be accounted for and then divided between the two spouses in a roughly equitable fashion.
So you may be concerned about what rights your spouse has to any property you owned before you entered the marriage.
Does he or she have any rights to it? And if so, is it possible that he or she may wind up getting possession of it in the divorce? Pre-Marriage Property With few exceptions, any property that can be considered owned jointly by both spouses is eligible for division during the divorce.
This includes roughly everything that you brought into the marriage, from investments to real estate to actual possessions.
A prenuptial agreement is a good way to protect any property you owned prior to the marriage from being divided in a divorce.
Prenups, as they are called, usually have provisions about the division of property and alimony payments.
A postnuptial agreement is a similar document, entered into after a marriage.
The legality of prenuptial and postnuptial agreements varies from case to case, so discussing your agreement with a divorce lawyer can be beneficial.
It is also possible to keep property from being considered joint property without the help of a prenuptial agreement, although this is much more difficult, and may depend on what state you live in.
In general, you can privately keep property such as:
- Real estate
- Bank accounts
- Investments
Bank accounts can be kept separate from spouses, but this requires maintaining it separately from a marital interest.
To do this, you must not have your spouse on the account.
Even still, an increase in overall value (such as increased investment, or interest paid on the account) may be considered owned by both spouses.
Again, it can be very helpful to discuss your situation with a divorce lawyer to ensure that you don't accidentally turn your property into marital property.
To learn more about what property can become marital property and how to retain possession of your property following a divorce, visit the West Palm Beach divorce lawyers of Eric N.
Klein & Associates.
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