Texas is a community property state, and there is a presumption that ALL property in the name of either party at the time of divorce is community property. Certain types of property are classified as separate property, specifically any property owned before the marriage or any property received by inheritance or gift during the marriage. The big problem here is proving the amount and existence of the property as separate.
For example, Husband had several 401(k)s from employers he had before the marriage. At some point during the marriage, he rolled the 401(k)s into a new account. He is able to show the creation of the account during the marriage and that the funds came from these other accounts. The only way the husband can show by clear and convincing evidence that the money in the account is his separate property is to produce statements from right before the marriage and trace those accounts to their current location. If the account has been rolled over and there is no paperwork from the prior account, this can be very difficult to do. Husband would have a much more difficult time in this scenario if he had rolled the separate property accounts into an account co-mingled with community property. Establishing what is separate and what is community in a co-mingled account can be extremely difficult.
If you happen to receive separate property during the marriage, either by inheritance or gift, it is advisable to keep that property in its own, separate account. Once you co-mingle the funds, it can be hard to prove which funds were separate and which funds were community, especially if some funds have been spent or moved around. It is also critical to keep records reflecting where the separate funds came from so you can prove that money is, in fact, your separate property.
Although very few people expect to get divorced, the bottom line is that many people find themselves in that situation some day. The moral of the story is to keep records of separate property accounts going all the way back to before the marriage or to the date you received the separate property.
