Oklahoma is an equitable division of marital property state regarding inheritance in a Tulsa divorce. This means that any assets acquired during the marriage must equitably divide in a divorce. Parties in a divorce may keep those items that they acquired prior to the marriage. Also they keep those assets they acquired after they physically separated, along with assets acquired through gift and inheritance.
However Who gets your inheritance in a Tulsa divorce may be a tricky matter. Certainly inheritance, like a retirement account, is an asset that one can expect to have use of in the future. Retirement accounts are subject to the same equitable division. Simply because the money put into these accounts is a joint venture by both of the parties. Unlike a retirement account any potential inheritance is a future interest. Because its not the sum of a “joint venture” its not marital property subject to division at trial. This means that who gets your inheritance in a Tulsa divorce is usually the party originally inheriting it.
Inheritance in a Tulsa Divorce:
Received During Marriage
If a party in a divorce received inheritance during the marriage, that inheritance could potentially be subject to division as “marital property“. For instance if a party received inheritance in the form of a money, and then commingled that amount by either investing it in a joint account or jointly acquired property, then that money is considered commingled. Once separate property commingles with marital property it becomes marital property itself. For example, wife receives $50,000 in inheritance. She uses that money to place a down payment on a house bought during the course of the marriage. She will not likely get $50,000 back in the divorce, and instead have to deal with it as her share of the equity in the home.
Another example is if husband received a piece of personal property, such as a car, as part of his inheritance. He later sells the car and uses the proceeds of the sale to pay off some marital debt. Again, he will not likely get his inheritance back, because he commingled this inheritance with a marital debt.
You may be interested in our article explaining in detail Marital and Personal Property.
The important lesson is that if you are going to receive inheritance during your marriage and worry about your spouse demanding a portion during divorce proceedings, is to keep those assets or funds separate and to not convert them to marital assets.
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If you need information regarding Who Gets Your Inheritance in a Tulsa Divorce we can help. We offer our divorce and family law clients a free consultation and are here to answer your divorce questions. Call 539 -302-0303 or come by our Law Office at 5319 South Lewis Ave Ste 125 in Tulsa today.