Legal Question in Family Law in Texas
I have a question about separate property. My wife's father put her name on a bunch of oil and gas leases about 6 years ago. We have been married for 10. We used all the interest from the wells as normal income that we both spent. She just decided to sell the leases and I was wondering what the money from the sale will be. Is it still separate property and if we decide to put it into mutual funds or something like that in a joint account will it then become marital property or will it forever be separate property.
1 Answer from Attorneys
The proceeds of the she will be separate. If she puts it into a joint account, it will still be separate.
You might argue in the future that by putting it in a joint account, she gifted it to you and thereby turned it into joint separate property. She would argue that the Texas Estates Code says that joint accounts are owned in proportion to the amount put into the account. So if she put in 100% of the funds, she owns 100% of the joint account. So the use of a joint account could cause some ambiguity.
The only way to turn it into community property is to enter into a conversion agreement under chapter 4 of the Texas Family Code.
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