Legal Question in Family Law in Maryland

Pre-marital property is property (like a house) that you buy before you get married. When you divorce, the court will "equitably divide" the marriage assets. Generally speaking, whatever you brought into the marriage, you get to leave with. An exception to this would be if you receive an inheritance during marriage -- typically this is treated as non-marital property.

With that said, if at any time after you married you transferred the property from you alone to your husband and you by changing the deed, it became marital property and he will get his equitable division. In addition, if he can show that he paid mortgage payments (regardless of the fact that it's been 5 years since his last payment), he may get credit for these in the equitable distribution of your marital assets.

My suggestion would be to IMMEDIATELY (and certainly before you separate) hire a Maryland family law attorney to discuss your options and rights not only with regard to the house, but all your other assets as well. If you have children that are not adults, you will want to discuss custody issues as well. It's better if you initiate this now so that you can have an attorney who is familiar with your case ready to go on a moment's notice.

Best of luck.******The above is for informational purposes and does not create an attorney-client privilege.*******

To supplement the other attorney's answer with regard to mortgage payments, you should be aware that income earned by either spouse during the marriage is considered marital property in MD. Thus, when you made mortgage payments from your earnings after you got married, you were using marital property, and therefore those payments increased the marital component of the property. So your husband, despite the fact that he didn't contribute directly to the mortgage from his earnings, still acquired an increasing marital interest which will be subject to equitable division in any divorce proceeding. This makes it all the more important that you retain an experienced family attorney to help you try to negotiate a settlement agreement with your husband that will make a possible divorce proceeding down the road go a lot smoother and be less expensive.