Protecting What You Built Before Marriage: Premarital Assets, Commingling & Transmutation
What you built before marriage isn’t automatically safe. In Florida, the law can strip away the protections you thought you had. A house, a business, a retirement account, or even an inheritance can go from being 100% yours to a marital asset that’s divided in divorce—sometimes without you even realizing it happened.
1. What Is a Premarital Asset?
Premarital assets are anything you owned before the date of marriage:
- Real estate
- Retirement or investment accounts
- Businesses
- Inheritances
At the start, these are considered non-marital. But over time, they can lose that protection.
2. How Premarital Property Becomes Marital (Commingling & Transmutation)
In Florida, two concepts put your property at risk: commingling and transmutation.
- Commingling happens when premarital assets are mixed with marital funds.
- Transmutation is even scarier: it’s when your premarital asset legally changes into marital property because of how it was used.
Common ways this happens:
- Adding your spouse to the title of a house or account
- Using marital funds to pay the mortgage, remodel, or maintain property
- Making your premarital home the marital residence—even for a short time
- Depositing premarital or inherited money into a joint account
- Using profits from your premarital business or investments to cover family bills
👉 Once property is transmuted, it’s no longer just yours. The court can treat it as marital property. And there’s no undo button.
3. How to Protect Yourself Before It’s Too Late
- In high-value cases, bring in a forensic accountant to trace assets
- Keep airtight financial records
- Do not add your spouse to deeds, titles, or accounts
- Avoid using premarital or inherited funds for joint purposes
- Consider a postnuptial agreement
4. In Divorce
The burden is on you to prove what stayed separate. If you don’t have the records—or if you commingled or transmuted the asset—you could lose it. Years of work, savings, or family inheritance can disappear into the marital pot.
👉 Don’t gamble with what you’ve built. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
You don’t have to have all the answers to get started. A confidential consultation can give you clarity and help you develop a strategy – even if you haven’t decided whether to file yet.
Call us today to protect what is rightfully yours – before it’s too late.
**Please note to ensure you receive a timely response from a member of our staff, please include family@costalawyers.com in all email correspondence. Thank you **
