Very often young couples starting life together pool their money and take a "what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine" worldview about finances. For example, young couples frequently put all the cash they receive as wedding gifts into a pot with the idea that down the road they will use it for a house. During the happy times of a marriage neither spouses worries about ownership because "the money is ours."

Commingled property makes for surprises when it is divided in a divorce. A money gift to one spouse deposited in an account in both names become commingled property and may be viewed as a gift to the marriage, i.e., both parties.

When the court must classify property conveyed from one transfer was a gift into a sole title, is the intersperse gift marital or separate property?

In general, courts agree that property can be classified as marital or separate by statute," (with the first taking priority over the second). This may happen when couples enter into what is contractual agreements, particularly what is called a contractual transfer.

Courts view contractual transfers as happening when they are the result of actual negotiations with "substantial discussion"; when one estate planning are not contractual.

In spouse alone.

Property conveyed as a gift generally is governed by what is called the joint title transfer is not a gift. When the court finds that a conveyance into joint title is a gift, the conveyed property is 100 percent marital, not 50 percent separate property of each spouse.

Very often, courts must struggle with what one legal observer calls "the meaning of denotive intent." One body of thinking -- which he calls the legal title approach -- defines "donative intent as the intent to interest in the asset." In this case, the asset is nonmarital.

When the court finds that a conveyance into any form of title is neither a contract nor a gift, the transfer does not affect the classification of the asset.

Sometimes death."

The more commingled separate and marital property becomes the more difficult it is to decipher and separate appropriately upon divorce. A common analogy used to describe commingled property is that it is much like a scramble egg. As mentioned, the most typical of commingling of assets is using inherited or separate funds to help purchase a marital home.

The term commingling is also used in connection with attorney-client finances. Commingling of funds by an attorney -- that is, his own with those of client -- is considered a breach of fiduciary responsibility and the lawyer is subject to disciplinary action.

See also Dual Classification States; Transmutation.