Legal Question in Family Law in Texas

If the IRA was separate property, the distributions from the IRA are separate property as well. However, any earnings on the IRA account that might be reflected in the distribution check would be community property.

For example, you got married and he had $10,000 in the account. Now he has $15,000 in the IRA from a combination of contributions made during the marriage and/or interest on the account. The original $10,000 is separate property but the $5,000 increase is community property. In Texas, we assume that community money comes out first. Therefore let's say he starts taking $1,000 distributions each quarter: the entire $1,000 is community until the account gets down to $10,000, then everything is separate. UNLESS he commingles it with community property (say a community checking account), in which case he might end up converting all of it to community property.