What’s Mine is Yours?
Video Transcribed: Still talking about stuff that you may think is important that the court doesn’t care about. My name is Brian L. Jackson. I’m a father’s rights attorney in Oklahoma here with Dads.Law, where fathers are not disposable. And today’s discussion is going to be about who paid for it in the marriage. This is one that comes up a lot, is that folks, a lot of people operate under the mistaken impression that because they bought something themself out of money that they may have earned at their job, that automatically makes it separate property.
I hate to bust your bubble, guys, but generally speaking, that is not the case. The way that marital property is defined in Oklahoma is it’s going to be anything that is the product of the joint industry of the marriage. Now, one of the things that a court will look at, that court does consider generally speaking to be of the joint industry of the marriage, is your earnings while you’re married. So for example, your job pays you X amount per month. Well, that’s marital property. Marital property doesn’t lose its character by changing in form.
So what that basically means is if you take money that’s marital property, and buy a thing with it, like a couch, a television, videos, firearms, anything like that, it doesn’t lose its character as marital property, so then that personal property becomes marital property. And the same applies to real property too. A lot of times you get into these arguments, “Well, my name’s the only one on the note or my name’s the only one on the deed.” But the property was paid for out of marital money, which means the equity in the property is still probably divisible.
So that’s something else that you can argue all day long about who paid for it, but if it was paid for out of money that was out of the joint industry of the marriage, it really is irrelevant who paid for it, because it’s marital property. And if you have any questions for a divorce attorney in Oklahoma or if you’re looking at a situation where you need to divide up property in a divorce settlement or a divorce that’s gotten hot, then you should go to Dads.Law, where fathers are not disposable, and we’d be glad to help you out.
