Husband wants to dictate what happens with property I’m set to inherit

[Anonymous]

The best thing that could happen here is your third sibling buys you and your ner-do-well sibling out. Then you take the money from the buyout and can rent the place back from the sibling that owns the place. Multiple owners even under the best circumstances is almost impossible to work out in the long term.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^OP here— and the idea of using inheritance money for upkeep is brilliant, instead of using marital assets. Unfortunately my husband believes that all assets, even inherited, are shared....

But they are not. He doesn't get to make up his own facts.

Not trolling/honest question.

If a couple shares all other aspects of finances, are inheritance's not considered a shared asset?

Legally or not, if they have completely combined finances, it would be reasonable for him to view the inheritance as an addition to the shared accounts. Tbh, that is how both my spouse and I would view it

Inheritances, in general, are individual. The exception is if you take inheritance money or assets and put them into joint investments. So if you deposit an inheritance into a joint account, it becomes marital/joint money. If you put an inheritance into a separate account, it stays individually owned until such time as you co-mingle it with marital assets. So, if you take the inheritance money and use it to pay a joint mortgage, the value you put into the mortgage becomes marital and is split evenly.

If you have an asset, like real estate and you pay for it entirely with individual funds (pre-marital or inherited funds that have never been co-mingled), then it remains individual. As soon as you apply co-mingled, marital funds to the inherited asset, the marriage partner immediately gains some co-ownership of the inherited property; the extent of the ownership depends on how much time or effort was put in by the married partner. In many cases, once co-mingled assets (joint funds, joint assets applied, the non-owning partner invests significant time or money into the property, etc) are committed to the formerly individual asset, then you need lawyers to help disentangle the exact value of the partner's ownership unless you had legal documents drawn up and signed before-hand that spelled out the details of how joint assets would be applied and how the value would be separated.

It is best to keep such assets completely independent of shared/co-mingled funds/assets. If you can't do that in a well-documented way, then you really need to engage a lawyer before you accept or at the time you accept the inheritance.