I'm not a lawyer, but I have consulted with a lawyer regarding New Mexico state law, (New Mexico being a community property state), and here's what I learned:
- assets (property and bank accounts) prior to marriage are separate property in the event of divorce as long as a *claim( is made that they are separate (because everything will be assumed to be marital unless you say otherwise), and it can be shown on paper that no community effort, money or contribution went into maintaining the assets. If these assets are not touched, then state law will protect you. If you have a bank account, this means you don't contribute any of your income into the account, because your income is community/marital property. Nor do you use the money in any way. If you contribute funds from your separate account into your marriage account or you use funds to buy things in your house, the funds you use become marital property, but the funds you don't use, remain separate.
- If the assets are used in some way during marriage, then this complicates things. Because time or effort spent on these assets is considered to be "marital" time and effort. So if you buy another property in your own name, there's a chance a divorce court will consider it "marital" property because you devoted effort to buy the property, to fix it up, to furnish it, etc. Even small amounts of community effort will ruin the chance that a divorce court will consider it separate property.
- If you contribute any of your income towards paying the monthly mortgage on this new property, then the property *for sure* will be considered marital property, and there's no ifs-ands-or buts about it. If you divorce, and your wife gets a lawyer who's even somewhat saavy, her lawyer will be sure to point this out.
- You can do anything you want on paper (such as put property in your own name, have your wife sign a quit claim, etc.) but it won't mean *anything* to a divorce court. The main thing a divorce court considers is whether you "mingled" your separate assets. It's up to you to prove that you didn't. If you have to do hand-waving to prove it, then forget about it.
Most "horror-stories," such as the one given by the previous poster, are cases where the individuals involved were not careful to keep their assets separate or did not understand the criteria the court uses to consider something as "separate."
Michael

