Uniform Marital Property Act

Section 4 of the Uniform Marital Property Act classifies the property of the spouses.  Under 4a it indicates that all property of the spouses is marital property except that which is otherwise classified by this act.  All property of the spouses is presumed to be marital property.  Each spouse has a present undivided one half interest in marital property.  The income earned or accrued by a spouse are attributable to property of a spouse during the marriage and the determination date is marital property.  The martial property transferred to a trust remains marital property.

The act also provides the property owned by a spouse at marriage at the determination date is individual property.  Section G provides that property acquired by a spouse during the marriage and after the determination date is individual property if it is acquired by gift or a disposition at death made by a third person to the spouse and not to both spouses; in exchange for or with the proceeds of other individual property of the spouse; from appreciation of the spouse’s individual property except to the extent the appreciation is classified as marital property under Section 14; by a decree, marital property agreement, written consent, or reclassification under Section 7b designating it as the individual property of the spouse; as a recovery for damaged property under Section 15, except as specifically provided otherwise in the Decree, marital property agreement, or written consent; or as a recovery for personal injury except for the amount of that recovery attributable to expenses paid or otherwise satisfied for marital property.

Except as provided otherwise in the act, the enactment of the Uniform Marital Property Act does not alter the classification and ownership rights of property acquired before the determination date.

Except as provided otherwise in the Uniform Marital Property Act, and to the extent it would affect the ownership rights of the spouse that existed in the property before the determination date, during marriage the interest of the spouse and property owned immediately before the determination date is treated as if it were individual property.