When people are going through a divorce in West Virginia, the subject of marital property comes up. One question on that subject is separate bank accounts and whether separate bank accounts can ever be considered to be marital property? For example, if someone has a bank account that’s solely in their name or the spouse has an account that’s solely in their name, people will wonder if that would be considered marital property and subject to be divided. The answer to that is generally yes. Now, some exceptions do apply to whether divided or not. One exception to that is if there’s a prenuptial agreement. If there’s a prenuptial agreement in place and it deals with accounts solely in one person’s name as being excluded from being marital property, that’s one exception.
The second exception is if the property has been totally untainted by marital money. For example, if someone has a marital account and it’s solely in one person’s name and in addition to that, no money from a marital account has gone in. In this example if it can’t be at all tied to marital money whatsoever, it’s going to remain separate property. It is very rare that an account is going to remain separate over the years, but if it is, then this could be an instance where it is not considered marital property.
Marital property is going to be things that are started during the marriage. For example, even if something is separate, if it’s a separate account and it cannot be tied back with money that originated prior to the marriage, then it’s still going to be considered to be marital property. Generally speaking, even if married for a short time and putting money in a separate account, most likely the courts will look at it as marital property even if it’s just in one person’s name.
The key is just because something is in one person’s name does not mean that that property is going to be considered to be separate property. In rare instances it can be possible, however most of the time, the courts will look at accounts started since married to be marital property.
