Legal Question in Family Law in Washington

That depends. You have to consult with an attorney and disclose all of the relevant details of your current marriage assets, investment and deposit accounts as well as the employment situation for you and your husband. These aspects should not be discussed in a public forum like Lawguru. A confidential consultation is essential for you to know your rights, legal obligations and what course of action will achieve your desired goals. Good Luck!

Based on what you've indicated, here is what I can tell you so far, but to get beyond what I write here, as Ms. Abelite already opined, you are going to need to consult with an attorney.

In terms of your money in the bank, so long as you keep it segregated from the income that you have earned during the marriage, which is community property, you preserve its separate property character given that you can directly trace this money from the sale of the home which you inherited. So long as any other property that you purchase with this same separate property money is not co-mingled with any community property money, such as money you might earn as part of your salary and then use to help improve or make payments upon the next investment property you have, then you should be fine.

You also asked about whether to execute a post nuptial agreement. In a situation such as yours, where you already have doubts about whether your marriage will survive, this is an excellent idea. Understand that under Washington's community property law, although the court starts with the presumption that whatever is your separate property you get to keep, there is also a statute that says not only is your community property divisible by the court, but so is your separate property. Thus, even if you perfectly preserve your real estate, and can trace it all the way back to the inheritance, if equity so demands, the court has the power to award some or all of your separate property to your husband in the event of a divorce. How likely that will occur depend upon the facts and circumstances of your marriage at the time of the divorce, if that ever comes to pass.

The postnuptial agreement, if done correctly, is the best way to avoid the uncertainty of allowing a court the ability to award any part of your separate property to your husband. In order for a postnuptial agreement to be "done correctly," as I indicated above, this means several things including the following: First, it means each of you has your own separate attorney, where one attorney drafts a proposed postnuptial agreement and the other attorney reviews it and at least discusses it with the client as to whether to sign it. Most of the time the attorneys go back and forth editing the draft in such a way that both clients can live with it. Second, it requires some meaningful amount of time to pass before signing. Personally, I will not let my clients go less than 14 days before signing such a document. The goal is to avoid any later accusation that one party was forced to sign it without having adequate time to review and respond to the proposed division of assets and debts contained in the postnuptial agreement.

A word of caution: even with a properly executed postnuptial agreement, if at the time of divorce one side seeks to challenge the postnuptial agreement for any reason, if they could show that at the time the postnuptial agreement was executed its terms were unfair, then this might be a basis upon which to set aside the postnuptial agreement. In a situation such as yours, where you make one third the income of your husband, I highly doubt this would be a problem, but again, I would need to go over the assets and debts that you possess, both separate and community, to know more. That is part of the process of drafting a post nuptial agreement and part of what an attorney would talk to you about in consulting with you in detail about your post.

Last, you mentioned that you were a foreign-born legal resident of Washington. For purposes of family law, this has no bearing on anything to do with distribution of assets and debts, regardless of the character of those assets or debts as being separate or community property in nature.

I hope this at least gives you some idea of what lies ahead for you.

Best of luck,