Legal Question in Family Law in New York
My spouse is claiming that my deposit of separate property into a joint marital account was a "marital gift", but all of the case law that I have reviewed analyzes my situation under a commingling/transmutation situation, where I have the burden of adequately tracing the source of the funds or proving the deposit was for convenience only.
Further, how can my deposit into the joint account be a "gift" when the Court of Appeals in Gruen v. Gruen held that in order to be a valid inter vivos gift the donor must "divest" themselves of dominion and control . How have I divested myself of control when I could simply withdraw the funds at anytime? Therefore, how can the deposit of funds into a joint account constitute a valid gift?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Proving that funds deposited into a joint account are not commingled is extremely difficult. The act of depositing into a joint account does, in fact, strip unilateral dominion and control from the donor, because the other party also could withdraw the funds at any time.
Convenience is probably your sole viable option, and that's fact specific.
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