If someone owned a mutual fund account prior to marriage, how much of that would be separate property after separation?

It depends. First, you’d have to look at how much was kept separate, if anything was contributed to that account during the marriage, what was earned under the interest, or is any marital property added to it or co-mingled? If there has been some marital property, again this would directly tie into what I was talking about before under division of assets and applying the Hunt formula and looking at non-marital property versus marital property. If there’s a title change or anything like that, those things can change it.

So, this one is a very difficult question to answer in this short of time without the specific facts. So, again if you have a question on this, then you certainly need to talk to a family law lawyer like myself or someone else who is experienced in dealing with asset divisions and divisions of retirement accounts in this sense.

Sean Sullivan is a family lawyer practicing in the Elmhurst, Illinois area at the law offices of Laura M Urbik Kern, specializing in child custody and dissolution in divorce. Visit his website, www.laurakern.com, and Divorce Magazine profile.