You would want to show proof that you’re intended to receive the inheritance, so a will, the testamentary document. There’s also sometimes people receive an inheritance in form of like paid on death and you’ll see statements that will have the decedents name and then also the beneficiary. And here wasn’t necessarily a formal probate action that awarded the property to the beneficiary. What you would to do is any documents that show yes, this came from the decedent it’s sort of I think of it as connect the dots. You want from the time that person intended to give the gift any documents that show that the decedent intended the beneficiary to have the inheritance. It would be personal representative documents, checks, those brokerage statements if it’s a brokerage account, anything that shows the transfer. And then once you have it and you’ve received it you would want to make sure that you have documentation showing that you kept it separate.

Now, for example, in the case let’s say you inherited a house you would want to be careful about putting a lot of labor and funds into the house because what you could be doing with hour marital funds and your marital effort is you could be creating a marital component on top of your non-marital house.