Separate Property
What does "Separate Property" mean in law?
Separate property refers to assets owned by one spouse that are not subject to division upon divorce, typically including property acquired before the marriage, property received by one spouse as a gift or inheritance during the marriage, and property excluded by a valid prenuptial agreement. The burden of proving that an asset is separate property generally falls on the spouse claiming it, and that spouse must trace the asset to its separate-property origin. The critical risk to separate property classification is commingling: when separate funds are mixed with marital funds (such as depositing an inheritance into a joint bank account), the separate character may be lost if the funds can no longer be traced. Some jurisdictions recognize that active appreciation of separate property due to marital efforts may be subject to division even though the underlying asset remains separate.
Definition
Separate property refers to assets owned by one spouse that are not subject to division upon divorce, typically including property acquired before the marriage, property received by one spouse as a gift or inheritance during the marriage, and property excluded by a valid prenuptial agreement. The burden of proving that an asset is separate property generally falls on the spouse claiming it, and that spouse must trace the asset to its separate-property origin. The critical risk to separate property classification is commingling: when separate funds are mixed with marital funds (such as depositing an inheritance into a joint bank account), the separate character may be lost if the funds can no longer be traced. Some jurisdictions recognize that active appreciation of separate property due to marital efforts may be subject to division even though the underlying asset remains separate.
Example
The wife successfully proved that the vacation home was her separate property by tracing its purchase entirely to an inheritance from her grandmother that she kept in a bank account solely in her name and never commingled with marital funds.