# I Had It Before We Married. Is It Still Mine?

> Money you brought into the marriage, inherited, or received as a gift can stay yours, along with the growth the market gave it. Whether it does depends on what you did with it, and whether you can prove it.

Source: https://ndmlaw.com/page/resources/papers/passive-appreciation-asset-tracing-south-carolina/ · Author: Nick Mermiges, Esq. · Published 2026-10-11 · Jurisdiction: South Carolina (family court) · Publisher: Law Office of Nick Mermiges, LLC, 1720 Main Street, Suite 202, Columbia, SC 29201 · (803) 587-0472

## The short answer

- Property you owned before the marriage, and property you inherited or received as a gift from someone other than your spouse, is nonmarital, and the family court has no authority to divide it. S.C. Code Ann. § 20-3-630.
- Growth in nonmarital property stays nonmarital, except to the extent the increase came directly or indirectly from the other spouse's efforts during the marriage. § 20-3-630(A)(5).
- Marital money put into separate property — paychecks, contributions, mortgage payments — is still marital money, and the court can reach it.
- Separate property can be transmuted into marital property by commingling it until it cannot be traced, titling it jointly, or treating it as the family's. Mixing alone is not fatal; losing the trail is.
- The spouse claiming property is separate has to prove it, and when the claim is contested the proof is documents: statements from the date of marriage forward, account by account.

Many people come into a South Carolina divorce with something that was theirs first: a brokerage account opened in their twenties, a house bought before the wedding, an inheritance from a parent, stock a grandparent gave them years ago. The question is always the same. *Is it still mine?*

Often, yes — and so is much of the growth. The instinct behind the law is easy to state: a parent who worked a lifetime to leave something to a child did not do it so the child's spouse could walk away with half. South Carolina's statute protects property you brought into the marriage, property you inherited, and gifts from third parties, and it protects the increase in value of that property too, with one important exception. But the protection is not automatic. It can be lost by the way the property was handled during the marriage, and it is only as good as the paper trail behind it. The spouse claiming separate property has to prove it.

This article covers the classification fight: what is separate, how separate property grows, how it becomes marital, and how tracing works. If your question is valuing a business or dividing a retirement account, start with our article on [dividing businesses and retirement accounts](https://ndmlaw.com/page/resources/papers/dividing-businesses-retirement-accounts-divorce/), which also covers what happens to values after the case is filed.

## Three questions, always in the same order

Equitable division in South Carolina runs in a fixed sequence. The family court must "(1) identify the marital property, both real and personal, to be divided between the parties; (2) determine the fair market value of the property so identified; (3) apportion the marital estate according to the contributions, both direct and indirect, of each party to the acquisition of the property during the marriage, their respective assets and incomes, and any special equities they may have in marital assets; and (4) provide for an equitable division of the marital estate, including the manner in which distribution is to take place." [*Johnson v. Johnson*](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=4,41&q=%22Johnson+v.+Johnson%22+%22296+S.C.+289%22), 296 S.C. 289, 293, 372 S.E.2d 107 (Ct. App. 1988).

Everything in this article lives in step one, and the statute draws a hard line around it: "The court does not have jurisdiction or authority to apportion nonmarital property." [S.C. Code Ann. § 20-3-630(B)](https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t20c003.php).

That does not make your separate property irrelevant to the rest of the case. When the court apportions the marital estate, one of the fifteen factors it must weigh is "the nonmarital property of each spouse." [S.C. Code Ann. § 20-3-620(B)(7)](https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t20c003.php). A spouse leaving the marriage with a substantial separate estate may receive a smaller share of the marital one. But the separate estate itself is not on the table.

## What South Carolina treats as yours alone

Marital property is "all real and personal property which has been acquired by the parties during the marriage and which is owned as of the date of filing or commencement of marital litigation … regardless of how legal title is held." [§ 20-3-630(A)](https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t20c003.php). The statute then lists what is excluded — nonmarital property:

| Category | Statute |
|---|---|
| Inheritances, devises, bequests, and gifts from someone other than your spouse | § 20-3-630(A)(1) |
| Property acquired before the marriage (and property acquired after certain events in the case, such as a temporary order) | § 20-3-630(A)(2) |
| Property acquired in exchange for property in either of the first two categories | § 20-3-630(A)(3) |
| Property excluded by a valid written contract, such as a [prenuptial agreement](https://ndmlaw.com/page/resources/papers/prenup-paper/) | § 20-3-630(A)(4) |
| "any increase in value in nonmarital property, except to the extent that the increase resulted directly or indirectly from efforts of the other spouse during marriage" | § 20-3-630(A)(5) |

One line in the same section cuts the other way: "Interspousal gifts of property, including gifts of property from one spouse to the other made indirectly by way of a third party, are marital property which is subject to division." § 20-3-630(A). A gift from your parents is yours. A gift from your spouse is not.

### Who has to prove what

The burden of proof shifts. The spouse who wants a share of an asset starts by showing it is marital; once that spouse "presents evidence to show the property is marital, the burden shifts to the other spouse to present evidence to establish the property's nonmarital character." [*Wilburn v. Wilburn*](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=4,41&q=%22Wilburn+v.+Wilburn%22+%22403+S.C.+372%22), 403 S.C. 372, 382, 743 S.E.2d 734 (2013). And for property acquired during the marriage, the burden of showing it falls within an exemption is on the spouse claiming it is nonmarital. [*Jenkins v. Jenkins*](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=4,41&q=%22Jenkins+v.+Jenkins%22+%22345+S.C.+88%22), 345 S.C. 88, 97, 545 S.E.2d 531 (Ct. App. 2001).

In practice, the person with the separate-property claim carries the case.

## Passive growth stays with the property

Here is the part of the statute that matters most to anyone with a premarital investment account or inherited assets: the increase in value of nonmarital property is itself nonmarital, "except to the extent that the increase resulted directly or indirectly from efforts of the other spouse during marriage." § 20-3-630(A)(5).

Family lawyers describe this as the difference between **passive** and **active** growth. Passive growth is what the market, inflation, or the economy does to an asset while nobody adds to it: stocks that appreciate, dividends that reinvest, land that rises with the neighborhood. If you brought a brokerage account into the marriage and left it alone, the growth on it generally follows the account. It does not become marital simply because it happened while you were married.

This is why small, old balances matter. A modest account from the year you married, left to compound for twenty years, can be a large number today. The growth on it is yours — but only if you can find the statement that proves what was there on the wedding day.


**Key rule.** Nonmarital property, and its increase in value, stays outside the marital estate unless the increase came from the other spouse's efforts during the marriage — and mixing separate funds with marital funds does not, by itself, make them marital. S.C. Code Ann. § 20-3-630(A)(5); [*Wannamaker v. Wannamaker*](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=4,41&q=%22Wannamaker+v.+Wannamaker%22+%22305+S.C.+36%22), 305 S.C. 36, 39–40, 406 S.E.2d 180 (Ct. App. 1991).


### The Wannamaker case

The leading illustration of how separate property survives mixing is [*Wannamaker v. Wannamaker*](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=4,41&q=%22Wannamaker+v.+Wannamaker%22+%22305+S.C.+36%22), 305 S.C. 36, 406 S.E.2d 180 (Ct. App. 1991). The husband's parents had given him stock before and during the marriage. He kept a bank account in his own name through which he bought and sold stock and deposited dividends — and he occasionally used money from that account for marital purposes. The wife argued that the stock had been transmuted into marital property.

The Court of Appeals disagreed. The wife's own CPA had examined the husband's receipts and disbursement journals spanning more than four decades. He found that money from the account had sometimes been spent on the marriage or moved to other accounts, but his review "revealed no instance of marital funds being used to acquire the stocks in question." 305 S.C. at 39. The court then addressed commingling directly:

> "Nonmarital property can become transmuted into marital property when it becomes so comingled as to be untraceable. … The phrase 'so co-mingled as to be untraceable' is all important because the mere comingling of funds does not automatically make them marital funds."

305 S.C. at 39–40 (citation omitted). The account was in the husband's name, and "[g]ood records were kept as to the deposits and disbursements in this account." *Id.* at 40. The court held the stock was traced to the husband's separate property, and it rejected the argument that using any part of a separate account for the marriage converts the whole account: that argument "is without merit." *Id.*

Three facts carried *Wannamaker*, and they are the same three facts that carry these cases today: the account stayed in one spouse's name, no marital money bought the separate assets, and the records were good enough to prove it.

> Mixing separate money with marital money is not what loses it. Losing the trail is.

## When growth becomes marital: marital money and marital work

The exception in subsection (A)(5) — growth that came from the other spouse's efforts — is only part of the picture. The bigger risk for most people is simpler: **marital money going into separate property.**

Wages earned during the marriage are marital. When marital earnings are poured into a separate asset, the value they create is still marital property; it has only changed form. *Johnson* is the classic example. The husband brought a house, other real estate, a Keogh retirement account, and IRAs into the marriage. The family court treated as marital the contributions of marital funds to his Keogh account and "the use of marital funds to reduce mortgage indebtedness on his separately titled real estate," and the Court of Appeals agreed: "These items were clearly marital property." 296 S.C. at 297. The remaining appreciation on his premarital property — growth that did not come from the parties' efforts — was treated as nonmarital. *Id.* As the court explained, the contribution of marital earnings to the husband's separate property "represented nothing more than a change in the form of the marital property." *Id.* at 299.

Work counts too. In the same case, the wife had personally renovated one of the husband's premarital rental properties, which had deteriorated to the point it could no longer be rented; her work made it marketable and income-producing again. The court recognized her claim: "A spouse has an equitable interest in improvements to property to which she has contributed, even if the property is nonmarital." *Id.* at 299. Lawyers call this a *special equity* — something short of transmutation. The Supreme Court has noted that the term can refer to "an interest in any increase in value of nonmarital property resulting from the non-owner spouse's material contribution." [*Dawkins v. Dawkins*](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=4,41&q=%22Dawkins+v.+Dawkins%22+%22386+S.C.+169%22), 386 S.C. 169, 173 n.1, 687 S.E.2d 52 (2010), *abrogated on other grounds by* *Lewis v. Lewis*, 392 S.C. 381, 709 S.E.2d 650 (2011). The logic is fairness: a spouse who spent years building up the other's property should not be treated as having worked for nothing, so the court has to estimate how much of the increase came from that work. But the spouse making that claim must offer evidence of the contribution. *Jenkins*, 345 S.C. at 99.

| What happened to the separate asset during the marriage | Likely treatment of the growth |
|---|---|
| A premarital brokerage account sat untouched; the market moved it | Generally nonmarital (passive growth) |
| Marital paychecks were contributed to a premarital retirement account | The contributions, and the growth on them, are marital |
| Marital funds paid down the mortgage on a premarital house | The equity those payments built is marital — at a minimum, the principal paid down during the marriage |
| The other spouse renovated, managed, or worked in the separate asset | The other spouse may have an equitable interest in the resulting increase |
| Inherited land produced rental income that went into the household account | The land generally stays nonmarital; the income spent on the family is gone |

The last row reflects a separate rule worth knowing: using the *income* from separate property to support the family does not, by itself, convert the property. The Supreme Court has said that "the mere use of income from non-marital assets does not transmute those assets into marital property." *Wilburn*, 403 S.C. at 385 (discussing *Peterkin v. Peterkin*, 293 S.C. 311, 360 S.E.2d 311 (1987)).

## Transmutation: how separate property becomes marital

Even property that started out separate can become marital in its entirety. South Carolina calls this **transmutation**. Property that was nonmarital when acquired may be transmuted "(1) if it becomes so commingled with marital property as to be untraceable; (2) if it is titled jointly; or (3) if it is utilized by the parties in support of the marriage or in some other manner so as to evidence an intent by the parties to make it marital property." *Johnson*, 296 S.C. at 295.

The touchstone is intent. "As a general rule, transmutation is a matter of intent to be gleaned from the facts of each case. The spouse claiming transmutation must produce objective evidence showing that, during the marriage, the parties themselves regarded the property as the common property of the marriage." *Id.* Typical evidence includes joint titling, commingling, and using marital funds to build equity in the property. *Id.* By contrast, "[t]he mere use of separate property to support the marriage, without some additional evidence of intent to treat it as property of the marriage, is not sufficient to establish transmutation." *Id.* at 295–96.

With a premarital house, the question we ask every client comes down to this: did the two of you actually treat it as your joint home? Did the other spouse put money into it, improve it, work on it, sign the loan, or hear you call it "our house" in writing? We do not ask so that anyone shades the answer. We ask because the true history, organized and documented, is the most persuasive story either side has.

The cases show where the lines fall:

- **Labor alone is not enough.** In *Wilburn*, a timber tract the husband inherited stayed nonmarital even though the wife helped manage it and timber income went into the joint account. "While the expenditure of time and labor on property may be some evidence of the intent of the parties to treat property as marital, it alone is not enough to establish intent." 403 S.C. at 384.
- **Conduct that treats the asset as shared is.** In [*Pittman v. Pittman*](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=4,41&q=%22Pittman+v.+Pittman%22+%22407+S.C.+141%22), 407 S.C. 141, 754 S.E.2d 501 (2014), the husband's premarital land-surveying business was transmuted. During the marriage the wife cut back her nursing job to work in the business full-time, the spouses made business decisions together, marital funds paid business debt, and the wife's personal credit supported the business. 407 S.C. at 149–52. The court counted only conduct *during* the marriage, *id.* at 151, and it was untroubled that the husband never admitted the business was marital: "where the transmutation question is litigated, one does not expect to find an admission." *Id.* at 150.

Transmutation is all-or-nothing as to the asset. "When property is determined to have been transmuted, the entire property, not just a portion of the property, is included in the parties' marital property" and is then apportioned under the statutory factors. [*Calhoun v. Calhoun*](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=4,41&q=%22Calhoun+v.+Calhoun%22+%22339+S.C.+96%22), 339 S.C. 96, 106, 529 S.E.2d 14 (2000); *Pittman*, 407 S.C. at 153.

### Transmuted is not the same as forgotten

A spouse whose separate property was transmuted does not get the original value carved back out. But the contribution still counts. The Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeals that "a transmutation of inherited nonmarital property into marital property [does] not extinguish the inheritor's right for special consideration upon divorce," and held, quoting an earlier decision, that the correct way to give that consideration is to treat the separate property as a contribution to the marital estate, "taken into account in determining the percentage of the marital estate to which [the inheriting party] is equitably entitled." *Dawkins*, 386 S.C. at 173–74 (second quotation from *Toler v. Toler*, 292 S.C. 374, 380 n.1, 356 S.E.2d 429 (Ct. App. 1987)). *Pittman* applied the same rule to a premarital business. 407 S.C. at 153. A good separate-property case should always be built with this fallback in mind.

### The most expensive signature: retitling

Joint titling is the transmutation clients most often do to themselves, usually for a good reason — survivorship, convenience, a new baby.

Here is how that plays out. One spouse brings an investment account into the marriage, and for years it sits in that spouse's name alone and grows with the market. Statement-by-statement tracing from the date of marriage can separate the premarital share, and its growth, from later marital money. But if the account was later retitled into both names and marital money went in afterward, the other spouse does not need to attack the arithmetic. The argument becomes intent. Those are exactly the kinds of objective evidence the transmutation cases look for, and any explanation for the retitling offered after the marriage ends — survivorship, estate planning — has to compete with the account paperwork itself.

The lesson is not that tracing is futile. Tracing is what makes a separate-property claim possible. The lesson is that tracing answers *how much* is separate; it does not answer *whether you intended to keep it separate*. Both questions have to be won.

If what you want is for your spouse to receive an account if you die, there are ways to do that — a beneficiary or transfer-on-death designation, for example — that do not put your spouse's name on the title. Talk to estate-planning counsel before you sign an application that adds an owner.

### What this means at the negotiating table

Most of these disputes settle, and they settle in the space the law leaves open. Classification is a finding of fact, and the family court has real discretion — to find a premarital house transmuted, to credit traceable separate money put into it, or to treat that money as a contribution that moves the percentage. In a long marriage, a separate-property claim to a house the family lived in for years often ends in a compromise rather than a zero. A well-documented claim does not guarantee a result; it moves the number, and it tells the other side what a trial would cost them to fight.

## Commingling is not the end of the story

*Wannamaker* is the authority for the proposition that mixing is not fatal, and the courts have kept applying it. In [*Myers v. Myers*](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=4,41&q=%22Myers+v.+Myers%22+%22391+S.C.+308%22), 391 S.C. 308, 705 S.E.2d 86 (Ct. App. 2011), the wife argued that a truck was marital because it was paid for out of the parties' joint checking account. The Court of Appeals, citing *Wannamaker*, repeated that "the mere commingling of funds does not automatically make them marital funds," and said that even a deposit into a joint account would not automatically make inherited money marital. 391 S.C. at 319. The husband had deposited a check from his father's estate and written the check for the truck less than twenty-four hours later, his account of it was corroborated by the parties' asset sheet, and no one else used the account. The truck was his. *Id.* at 319–20.

Compare *Wilburn*. There, the husband claimed a brokerage account held only stocks he had inherited. But the evidence showed the account had also been funded with stocks bought during the marriage, trust distributions, and money from a joint checking account, and the husband's own testimony about what was in it was contradictory. The account was marital. 403 S.C. at 383.

The difference between those outcomes is not whether the money was ever mixed. It is whether someone could still follow it.

## Tracing: what evidence actually wins

Tracing is the work of following separate money from its source to where it sits today. Our standard in every case with separate property is simple: every premarital or inherited dollar the client claims should be traced and proven. There is no statutory formula; the family court decides whether the evidence is credible and complete. What wins is consistent across cases.

**Statements back to the date of marriage.** The two most important documents in a premarital-account claim are a statement from the month of the wedding and a statement from the filing date. Everything between them is the trail: every deposit, every withdrawal, every transfer in or out. If an inheritance or gift is the source, start with the estate distribution or gift paperwork and the deposit that received it.

**Account by account.** Each account needs its own trail. Accounts merge, brokerages are acquired, money is rolled over. A claim built on "it was all my premarital money" without the statements that connect the old account to the new one invites the court to find the trail broken.

**Gaps can be closed.** Banks, brokerages, and plan administrators often say they can only produce seven years of statements. Ask again, and ask for the department that handles records requests; older records can sometimes be found. Where they cannot be obtained voluntarily, a subpoena may reach them, and a short gap can sometimes be bridged by the pattern of the statements on either side of it.

**Two ways to do the math.** When separate and marital money sit in the same account, tracing usually takes one of two approaches:

- *Direct tracing* follows specific dollars to specific purchases — the inheritance check in *Myers* that bought a truck within twenty-four hours, or the stock purchases in *Wannamaker* that no marital dollar touched.
- *Proportional (pro-rata) tracing* is used when the money in an account is invested together. Each deposit buys a share of the account, and growth is allocated according to each source's share at the time. A simplified example: an account holds $60,000 of premarital money on the wedding day and grows to $90,000 with no deposits. A $30,000 marital deposit is then made, bringing the account to $120,000 — three-quarters traceable to the premarital source and one-quarter marital. If the account later doubles to $240,000, the same proportions apply: $180,000 traces to the premarital source and its passive growth, $60,000 to the marital deposit and its growth. Withdrawals and additional deposits are handled the same way, step by step.

The proportional method depends on complete statements, and it measures only *how much* is traceable. It does not answer the transmutation question, and a court that finds transmutation will not reach it.

**Contemporaneous records beat reconstruction.** In *Wannamaker*, it mattered that journals had been kept for decades, long before anyone was thinking about a divorce. Records made at the time — brokerage statements, cost-basis records, tax filings that show when stocks were purchased, closing statements — are far more persuasive than a spreadsheet assembled for trial.

**Testimony fills gaps; in a contested case it does not replace documents.** Uncontradicted testimony can be enough — in *Wilburn*, the wife's testimony about the source of her accounts was sufficient because the husband offered nothing to contradict it. 403 S.C. at 385–86. But once the source is disputed, testimony that "the money came from my other account," with nothing to show it, is easy for a court to discount. So is an opposing spouse's testimony that is vague or inconsistent.

## Inheritances and gifts: the same rules, different traps

Inherited and gifted property is nonmarital when received. § 20-3-630(A)(1). The traps are predictable:

- **The joint-account deposit that never leaves.** An inheritance deposited into a joint checking account and then spent over months on family expenses is the textbook case of property "so commingled as to be untraceable." The *Myers* outcome turned in large part on a purchase made within twenty-four hours of the deposit, by the only person who used the account.
- **The marital home.** Using an inheritance for the down payment on a jointly titled house, or to pay down its mortgage, is joint titling and use for the marriage at the same time. In *Dawkins*, the marital residence had been a gift to the husband from his mother, and it was undisputed that it had been transmuted. 386 S.C. at 173.
- **Gifts with unclear donors.** A check from your parents made out to both of you invites an argument that it was a gift to the couple. If a gift is to you alone, the paperwork should say so.

The simplest protection is the one in *Wannamaker*: keep inherited and gifted property in an account titled in your name alone, keep marital money out of it, and keep the records.

## Protecting separate property, during the marriage and during the case

Most of this work is done long before anyone files. If you have premarital, inherited, or gifted assets:

- **Get the wedding-date statement now.** Brokerages and banks purge old records. A statement from the month of the marriage is the foundation of every separate-property claim, and it is far easier to download today than to subpoena later.
- **Keep separate accounts separate.** Do not deposit paychecks into a premarital or inherited account, and do not pay family expenses out of it if you can avoid it. If some mixing has already happened, it is usually not the end of the world as long as it can be traced — but stop it now. A fresh account in your name alone for any new separate money keeps the trail clean.
- **Think hard before adding a name.** Retitling an account or deed into joint names is objective evidence of intent to share it. If survivorship is the goal, ask about beneficiary designations instead.
- **Know what your marital money is doing.** Marital dollars paying the mortgage on your premarital house or funding your premarital retirement account create a marital interest. That may be fine — but it is marital.
- **Consider a written agreement.** Property excluded by a valid written contract is nonmarital. § 20-3-630(A)(4). Our [prenuptial agreement article](https://ndmlaw.com/page/resources/papers/prenup-paper/) explains what South Carolina requires.

Once a case is pending:

- **Do not divide accounts informally.** Spouses who split a brokerage account between themselves at separation, without a written agreement or court order, create facts the other side will use — on transmutation, on valuation, and on who bears post-filing gains and losses. Get it in writing, through counsel.
- **Produce the records early.** A complete tracing summary disclosed in [discovery](https://ndmlaw.com/page/resources/papers/discovery-enforcement-family-court/) carries more weight than documents produced on the eve of trial.
- **Mind post-filing changes.** Values keep moving while the case is pending, and South Carolina distinguishes active and passive changes after filing as well. Our [business and retirement article](https://ndmlaw.com/page/resources/papers/dividing-businesses-retirement-accounts-divorce/) covers that rule.

### My investment account grew a lot during the marriage. Does my spouse get half of the growth?

Not automatically. Growth in nonmarital property is nonmarital under S.C. Code Ann. § 20-3-630(A)(5), except to the extent it came from the other spouse's efforts during the marriage. Market growth on a premarital account that nobody added marital money to generally stays yours. Growth that came from marital deposits, or from the other spouse's efforts on the asset during the marriage, is a different story — and you must be able to show which is which.

### I put my inheritance in our joint account for a few days. Did I lose it?

Not necessarily. South Carolina courts have repeatedly said that mere commingling does not automatically make funds marital. In *Myers v. Myers*, 391 S.C. 308, 705 S.E.2d 86 (Ct. App. 2011), an inheritance check that was deposited and spent on a truck within twenty-four hours stayed nonmarital, and the court said that even a deposit into a joint account would not automatically have made the money marital. The longer the money sits, mixes and gets spent on family expenses, the harder it is to trace.

### I added my spouse's name to my premarital account. Is it marital now?

It may be. Joint titling is one of the classic ways separate property is transmuted into marital property, and an interspousal gift is marital property under § 20-3-630(A). Your reason for adding the name matters, but courts judge intent by objective evidence — the account application, later deposits, and how both of you treated the account — not by what you say about it after the marriage ends.

### If my separate property was transmuted, do I get anything back for having contributed it?

Not as a dollar-for-dollar refund. Once property is transmuted, the whole asset is marital. But the South Carolina Supreme Court has held that the contribution should be weighed when the court sets the percentage division of the marital estate. *Dawkins v. Dawkins*, 386 S.C. 169, 687 S.E.2d 52 (2010), *abrogated on other grounds by* *Lewis v. Lewis*, 392 S.C. 381, 709 S.E.2d 650 (2011); *Pittman v. Pittman*, 407 S.C. 141, 754 S.E.2d 501 (2014).

### How far back do I need records?

To the date of the marriage, or to the date the separate money arrived — an inheritance, a gift, a sale of premarital property — and forward from there. A statement from the wedding month and one from the filing date bracket the claim; the statements in between show whether marital money went in or separate money came out. Gaps are where separate-property claims fail.

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General information about South Carolina law, not legal advice. Consultations: https://ndmlaw.com/consult/