Are inheritances divided in divorce?

Inheritance Division in a Divorce

An inheritance in divorce is divided by the court. They have the right to divide it 50-50. They may also allocate it differently. In general, if an inheritance is traceable to the person that received it, then the court would not divide that 50-50, especially if the inheritance was received close to the date of divorce. It also depends on how the parties treated the inheritance during the marriage. If for example, if you received an inheritance and you decided with your spouse that you both wanted a new kitchen 10 years ago, then you have both enjoyed the kitchen. In such a situation, you are not going to be able to go back and take out that money back out. You may not also not retrieve it from the marital state because the it is ‘woven into the fabric of the marriage’. The technical terminology is in fact, “woven into the fabric of the marriage”. If the inheritance is ‘woven into the fabric of then marriage’, then it will probably be treated as a marital asset subject to a 50-50 division. It is a different matter altogether if it was segregated and treated as a separate asset by the parties. An instance would be an investment account under one person’s name only, that was set up as a joint account, and the non-inheriting spouse had been unaware of its existence, location or value. The odds are that it is much less likely to be considered in a 50-50 division. In fact, it might even be entirely excluded from the division of the marital estate.