Property Division Attorney in Eagan, Minnesota
What’s the difference between marital and non-marital property?
What’s the difference between marital and non-marital property?
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00:04
well when you begin a case you need to
00:07
have a conversation with the client or i
00:09
need to have a conversation with a
00:11
client about what their assets are
00:13
do you have assets that you had in um in
00:16
place before you got married have you
00:18
acquired them since you’ve gotten
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married from
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a will or devise or inheritance or a
00:24
gift from a non-party
00:26
so for example gifts between parties are
00:29
not non-marital non-marital property so
00:32
i can’t give my husband a watch and then
00:34
he can claim it as a non-marital
00:36
property so that that kind of is the
00:38
basic explanation of that
00:40
but anything i mean the there’s a
00:41
presumption in place in minnesota that
00:44
all property is marital and so if you
00:47
have a non-marital property claim it is
00:49
really important that you identify what
00:52
it is and begin the process to trace it
00:55
sometimes
00:57
property is
00:59
convoluted it can be a part of a
01:01
business ownership issue it can be part
01:04
of a retirement account it can be part
01:06
of
01:07
a farm or a home where you put money
01:10
down on on the purchase of the house
01:12
before you get married and it’s from a
01:14
non-marital source that’s non-marital
01:16
and you want to preserve that because
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non-marital assets actually increase
01:20
over time so they are just not stagnant
01:22
creatures so if you put ten thousand
01:24
dollars in a house and the value of your
01:26
house goes up the value of your ten
01:28
thousand dollar non-marital deposit into
01:30
that house is going to go up as well so
01:32
it’s it’s important this is not
01:34
you can decide you’re not going to do it
01:36
but mostly it’s something that’s
01:37
worthwhile doing and then marital
01:39
property is is really everything else
01:41
but you also want to be complete you
01:43
need to know
01:44
which party has what and there’s
01:46
concerns sometimes
01:48
that parties are hiding information or
01:51
hiding
01:52
assets they had a case a few years ago
01:55
where we were looking at bank accounts
01:57
and magically fifty thousand dollars was
01:59
gone and we just we we determined that
02:02
it had been deposited in a girlfriend’s
02:04
account in new york new york and
02:07
so we were able to get that back but you
02:09
can’t just lollygag you really do need
02:11
to take a look at what’s going on and
02:13
make sure that you’re being thorough in
02:15
your investigation and your review that
02:17
does often involve a lot of discovery
02:19
which is
02:21
mostly done informally in minnesota but
02:24
the process is also more formal if
02:26
you’re concerned about
02:27
the veracity of the of the client or the
02:30
truthfulness of the client because you
02:31
get formal discovery under oath which is
02:34
valuable in court but you also have to
02:36
consider how costly this is and so
02:38
you’re weighing your weighing the
02:40
situation each time
Eagan, MN family law attorney, Susan M. Gallagher explains the difference between marital and non-marital property.
