When You’re Married, Everything’s a Marital Asset, Unless You Can Prove That It’s a Separate Asset
Video Transcribed:
What is marital property in Oklahoma? I’m Tulsa Attorney James Wirth, and we’re talking about frequently asked divorce questions, and that’s the question, what is marital property? So marital property is anything that you’ve earned during the marriage.
So if you’re working, getting a wage, that’s going to be money that you earned during the marriage. If you’ve got money going into a retirement account, that’s going to be an asset from money that you earned during the marriage. If you bought something from money from the marriage, that’s going to be a marital asset.
So the general rule is, when you’re married, everything’s a marital asset, unless you can prove that it’s a separate asset. So that comes down to, what’s the definition of separate?
To be separate, it needs to be something that you owned prior to the marriage, something that was gifted to you solely, or something that was inherited during the marriage.
So those are the three ways that you get separate property. But any of those three separate properties, if they’re co-mingled with marital funds, or they’re titled jointly, then they trans-mutate, and they can become marital, and be marital property as well.
So you got to be careful about that. If you’ve got separate property and you want to keep it separate, you need to put it in an account separate from the other party, where you’ve got access to it, you’re the only one that’s on it, and where you certainly don’t put any marital funds in it.
So I hope that explains to you what marital property is. If you still have questions based on your Oklahoma Divorce for in your specific circumstances, you’re going to want to talk to an attorney, give me a call. To talk to a Tulsa Divorce attorney at my office, go to makelaweasy.com.
