
Caller:  When you get a divorce. What is it that determines community property and separate property? Because I want to prepare myself. Because my marriage is kind of on the rocks. I've acquired a few classic cars over the years, and I don't want her to get them.

Rick: Yeah, well, the determination really has already happened. And the key is to try and protect, you know, whatever that determination originally started at. I, let me let me kind of explain it a little bit more basic circumstances where in Washington there's a presumption to a starting point that anything that you've acquired during marriage is shared and shared, like is is this community?

So then the then the question is, well, is there a reason, though, that it should be a separate property? Well, separate property consists of things that you brought into marriage, that were already owned outright. So you weren't continuing to pay off on them. So let's use the classic cars. An example, a classic car that you had, paid off, sitting in your garage when you got married.

The assumption is that it remains your separate property. You know, the complexities is when you, let's say, buy this for $5,000, it's sitting in your garage and you put $15,000 into building it up, all of all of which you put in after you were married. That becomes a cloudy issue. 

You could argue separate property, but they could also argue community property because it was your income while married that was that was kind of producing this, the other big exception for you and it for everybody to hear out there is if you, have let's, let's say an inheritance which is usually considered separate property to the individual that inherited it.

that money usually goes, you know, straight into a bank account, a separate bank account to keep its nature. And then moneys that you spend out of that can, can be traced back to those separate property roots. So again, in your example, let's say there was an inheritance from that inheritance. You specifically went out and purchased a classic car.

Well, that classic car remains your separate property because it can be traced back. It's complex and usually one of those where if you're sitting down with me, we kind of go through the, the lifeline of whatever this piece of property is to see if we can argue that it should be traced to a separate property. Yes. So if he acquired the classic cars during the marriage, then, she could be spiteful and take them.

Let's say that, you know, five, ten years into the marriage, you bought a classic car for $20,000 because you had it in the joint savings account. Yeah, that's going to be community property. 

Okay, well, one of the things to mention on this, community property needs to be divided as well.

So it becomes kind of a balance sheet analysis. My guess is she's not really interested in the community. If in the classic car, it's cars themselves, if it's community property. But she is probably going to be interested in her share of the value of that so often means maybe sliding something that you care less about over onto the other side of the ledger, or just something more might be on the other.

And then you're able to, you know, keep and collect your hobbies.



Can I Keep My Ex From Getting My Classic Cars In Property Division?

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Can I Keep My Ex From Getting My Classic Cars In Property Division?

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