How to Protect Your House Purchased Before Marriage – DeeDee’s Blog

A successful marriage takes commitment and effort. However, it cannot be denied that a great percentage of marriages in this modern-day and age end up in divorce. While some can come up with an amicable settlement between both parties, others have it worse, such that properties are unfairly distributed between the estranged husband and wife.

To ensure that the properties you have garnered to your name, such as your house, remain protected regardless of how your marriage eventually ends up, below are some of the things that you can do.

Get a Prenuptial Agreement

It is often the case that the equity of your property increases over time, particularly under good market conditions. To calculate the increase in the equity of the property that you have acquired before marriage, you can use the Malmquist formula. In this case, you can include the resulting value of your property from the calculation in a prenuptial agreement, because otherwise, you can end up losing your property.

Thus, one of the primary things that you can do to protect the properties you have purchased before marriage, such as your house is to get a prenuptial agreement. This agreement can help define the properties that you have acquired when you are still single, and it also includes provisions on how your assets as a couple should be divided in case you separate.

Should you end up in separate ways, later on, at least any further agony is mitigated because your rights have been defined in advance.

Keep Your Assets Separate

Aside from getting a prenuptial agreement, you can also protect the house that you have purchased before marriage by keeping your assets separate. This means that any funds you put into your property should come from your account rather than from any joint account that you and your spouse will put up later on. This is also true in case you receive gifts from your family and friends. As much as possible keep your properties separate instead of commingling them with your spouse’s funds or properties.

Keeping your assets separate also means that you should not add your spouse’s name into the deed of your property. This is because once you do so, an opposing divorce lawyer may, later on, argue that by adding your spouse’s name to the deed, you intended for your spouse to own half of your property. This is also the case for any business that you are running under your name. As soon as you add your spouse’s name to your business assets, then you are insinuating that it is your intent for your partner to own half of your business.

To wrap things up, it is a smart move to ensure that the properties you have acquired to your name when you are still single are properly protected through the ways mentioned above. But as much as possible, exert the extra effort to make your marriage work so that having to protect your properties from your spouse would be the least of your worries. After all, marrying someone you love should be a lifelong commitment between you and your partner.

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