Premarital Property

Here is a question I got from a woman a few days ago: "We purchased our home before we were married. I put the down payment on the house. Can I get that money back?"

I get questions about premarital property a lot. This version is a little tricky, though, since the couple bought the house together. When one person owned the house before the couple met and married, the answer is pretty easy: the person who bought the house alone gets to keep what that person "had in" the house before they were married. After the couple gets married, whatever goes into the house will probably be considered joint property. The tricky part of her question is that I can see the husband claiming that the down payment was a gift, and therefore he's entitled to half of the down payment. After all, they bought the house together, even though it was before they were married.

Personally, I'm pretty confident that she'll get her money, mostly because the husband has the almost impossible chore of proving that the downpayment was a gift, but we'll see. Sometimes I get questions that just don't have easy answers.