Dear Moneyist,
I received a gift from my mother a few years ago. He transferred a substantial amount of money to a bank account only in my name. My husband convinced me to add his name to my account a few months later. The money has not been reached for several years. No transactions were made.
A few years after this gift was made, my husband increased the spectrum of divorce. At that time, I returned my mother’s balance to Europe. Now, when we go through a divorce 5 years after the day I returned the money, my future ex-husband says he is entitled to half of that money from my mother. We live in California. Is right?
Be free soon
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Dear soon,
Until a divorce court rules on this or if your own lawyer will give you an opinion, do not buy what your spouse is trying to sell.
Under California law, gifts received during a third-party marriage made specifically for a spouse are NOT considered marital or community property. However, you deposited the money in a bank account under both names, so that the money is technically mixed and, as such, transformed from separate property into marital property. Since this was money in a joint account, you have every right to send the money back to your mother.
The specter of divorce raises questions, of course, and your spouse could claim in divorce court that you were guilty of squandering (or squandering) marital property before separation. A divorce court would not kindly regard such behavior and could take punitive action and order the restoration of funds. But this should probably be done in a way that was meant to hurt the other husband. Given the origin of this money, this does not seem to be the case here.
There are more egregious examples of wasting marital funds: “A cheating husband can pay for his girlfriend’s luxury apartment for $ 5,000 a month.” according to law firm Claery & Hammond. “A vengeful wife can sell her husband’s classic $ 75,000 car for $ 1,000 on Craigslist. A husband can go to Las Vegas and throw $ 20,000 at gambling and strip clubs, or a wife can get a “Mommy Makeover” a few days before filing for divorce. The possibilities are endless. “
The Moneyist:My boyfriend’s ex-wife claimed her two sons as dependents on her taxes and received their incentive checks, but they live with us.
You have another factor in your favor: your marriage has survived for another five years. There may have been happy times during that time, and some couples throw away the “word D” as they pass through a rocky patch. According to Ben Carrasco, a lawyer in Austin, Texas: “Husbands are discouraged from challenging transactions that took place long before the dissolution of the marriage in an effort to gain an advantage during the property division process.”
The burden of proving that a transfer of marital property did not qualify as waste is likely to fall on the party who transferred the property, Carrasco says. However, he says the timing of such a transfer is also critical: “The courts will focus on the time in the couple’s marriage, when it became clear that the marriage was in jeopardy and that any major transfers were made in anticipation of separation and divorce.” he writes, so it’s not as clear as your husband suggests.
To shorten a long story – too late! – your husband seems to be using the same aggressive tactics that allowed him to add his name to your bank account.
The Moneyist: I earned $ 100,000 in 2019, but much less in 2020. Why didn’t I get an incentive check? How is it correct?
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