What Happens When You Use Your Separate Property to Buy a Marital Home?

At first glance, the rules about separate and marital property seem simple.  All the assets you acquire during the marriage are marital, and everything you have owned since before you married your spouse is your separate property.  There is more room for ambiguity than you might imagine, though.  Money that you get through inheritance or a personal injury settlement is your separate property, even if you were already married to your spouse when you received the money or when you filed the lawsuit.  Likewise, if one spouse bought a house before the marriage and the couple lived in the house together while they were married, then the amount that the house’s value appreciated during the marriage counts as marital property.  For help navigating ambiguous situations regarding the division of marital property in divorce, contact a Boca Raton divorce lawyer.

The Wife Who Spent Her Life’s Savings on a Whirlwind Romance

When a marriage ends in divorce after less than five years, the court’s goal is to restore each spouse’s finances to where they were before the couple married.  A lot can change in a few years, especially when it involves a whirlwind marriage between two people of vastly unequal financial means.  An accountant who earned $40,000 per year married a wealthy woman, who bought a $412,000 house to celebrate their marriage, and then spent $500,000 of her separate assets to renovate it.  The couple lived in the house together throughout their brief marriage, and the house had appreciated in value during the three years they were married.  The husband was entitled to a share of the value of the house, which was marital property, so he was one of the few people who left a marriage in better financial shape than he had been in when he got married.

The Couple Whose Only Financial Stability Came From the Husband’s Medical Malpractice Settlement

Another couple gave their vow to love each other in sickness and in health a fair shot.  Despite chronic health problems, the wife earned a modest income from jobs such as being a cashier, seamstress, and house cleaner.  The husband was unable to work because of complications from a benign brain tumor.  During the marriage, he received a settlement from the medical malpractice lawsuit against the doctors who had treated him for the brain tumor and caused preventable complications.  The settlement was hundreds of thousands of dollars; the husband used the money to buy a condominium for himself and his wife in Miami, but the couple otherwise lived modestly, because of their limited earning potential.  Medical malpractice settlement money is separate property, but a house where both spouses live is marital property, even if they bought it with one spouse’s separate property.  When the couple divorced, the court ordered the husband to compensate the wife for her share of the condo’s value, but it refused her request for alimony, because she was in her 50s and, despite her health conditions, still capable of working.

Contact Schwartz | White About Marital Homes Purchased With Separate Assets

A South Florida family law attorney can help you get your fair share of the marital home’s value, even if the house or the source of its funds was originally your ex-spouse’s separate property.  Contact Schwartz | White in Boca Raton, Florida about your case.

Sources:

scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8171305391625346574&q=divorce+salon&hl=en&as_sdt=4,10

scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16615575206115580607&q=divorce+mercedes&hl=en&as_sdt=4,10&as_ylo=2011&as_yhi=2021