North Carolina Divorce Lawyers Blog

Articles Tagged with inheritance

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Suppose you inherit money from a family member during your marriage. Is your inheritance subject to being divided under North Carolina’s equitable distribution statute? The brief answer: it depends.

North Carolina General Statute § 50-20 defines marital property as all real and personal property obtained and currently owned by either or both spouses during the marriage and before the date of separation unless that property is determined to be separate or divisible property. Separate property under N.C.G.S. §50-20 is real and personal property acquired by a spouse before or during the marriage through devise, descent, or gift. Applying the definitions of marital and separate property from N.C.G.S. § 50-20, any money or property you inherit from a family member would be separate property. Continue reading →

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In North Carolina, Equitable Distribution (ED) is how property is divided in divorce proceedings. ED can be a complicated process, and much of it relies on timelines and tracing funds. When people get married, a typical occurence is that separate bank accounts are converted to joint accounts. What happens in a divorce proceeding when one spouse claims that the account is not joint but still separate, despite the addition of the other spouse’s name? Continue reading →

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Dear Carolyn,

My wife and I have been married almost two years. Recently, and unfortunately, her grandmother passed away. Her grandmother had no immediate means to pay for funeral and burial services. The costs were paid by my wife and me on our credit card. The family has considerable land assets in Guilford County, but it is in her grandmother’s and multiple siblings’ name. My wife will inherit a portion of her grandmother’s land (split with my wife’s uncle). No one in the family has the means to buy us out, and, as is often the case, there is no reachable agreement by the family to divide the land. Is there any way to sell off some or all of what my wife is entitled to help reimburse us for the costs of the funeral and burial services? Continue reading →

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The previous two posts on premarital agreements have addressed future spouses who are considering signing a premarital agreement. The final two posts in this series will address the future spouses’ parents.

In particular, this post is directed at parents who have worked hard enough, and been fortunate enough, to accumulate significant property. You desire, naturally enough, to leave that property to your children. But you do not want that property to pass to your children’s spouses. How can this goal be accomplished? Continue reading →