Is an Inheritance Marital Property in Florida?

1. What Does Florida’s Divorce Statute Say About an Inheritance?

An inheritance is nonmarital property under Florida’s divorce statute. The statute lists assets acquired separately by either spouse by gift, bequest, devise or descent from someone other than the other spouse as nonmarital, along with anything acquired in exchange for them. A daughter who inherits $300,000 from her father and buys a brokerage account with it owns a nonmarital brokerage account.

A Florida divorce court starts by sorting. Each spouse gets back his or her nonmarital assets, and the court divides the marital assets beginning from the premise that the split should be equal. An inheritance that is still identifiable as an inheritance never enters the pile that gets divided.

Income from the inheritance follows the inheritance. Dividends, interest and rent earned during the marriage stay nonmarital unless the couple treated the income, used it or relied on it as marital money. A family that pays its grocery bill with the rent from an inherited condo has turned that rent into household money.

The burden sits with the spouse who inherited. Florida presumes that anything acquired during the marriage is marital until it is shown to be nonmarital, so the bank statements, the estate distribution letter and the closing statement on an inherited house are the proof. An inheritance with no paper trail is hard to prove twenty years later.

2. How Does an Inheritance Become Marital Property?

An inheritance usually becomes marital through commingling, which means mixing it with marital money until it can no longer be traced. Florida courts presume that a spouse who deposits separate money into a joint account, where it is mixed with other funds, made a gift of an undivided half of it to the other spouse. The spouse who inherited can overcome that presumption only by clear and convincing evidence that no gift was intended.

Money is the easiest asset to commingle, because one dollar looks like every other dollar. A husband who deposits a $90,000 inheritance into the joint checking account and pays the household bills from it for three years will struggle to show which dollars were his. Florida courts have also held that an account titled in one spouse’s name alone can become marital once marital paychecks go into it, so the name on the account settles nothing by itself.

Growth in value is the second route. Florida’s statute treats the enhancement in value of a nonmarital asset as marital when the enhancement comes from either spouse’s work during the marriage, or from marital money spent on the asset. An inherited rental building stays nonmarital, but the value a husband adds by renovating it on weekends, paid for from the joint account, is marital.

Title is the third. Real and personal property the couple holds as tenants by the entirety (the form of joint ownership reserved for married couples in Florida) is presumed marital, whenever it was acquired. Retitling an inherited asset that way shifts the burden to the spouse who inherited it.

3. How Do You Keep an Inheritance Separate?

Florida courts have said that a spouse shows the intent to keep an inheritance separate when it goes into a separate account, nothing else is deposited into that account, and the account is never mixed with the couple’s other money. Five habits follow from that.

1. Open a new account in your name alone and have the estate or the trustee pay the inheritance directly into it.
2. Deposit nothing else into it. A paycheck, a tax refund or a birthday check from your spouse is marital money and starts the mixing.
3. Never route the money through a joint account, even for a day to pay a closing. Wire it straight from the inheritance account to the title company.
4. Pay the costs of inherited property from the inheritance account, including the taxes, insurance and repairs on an inherited house.
5. Keep the paper. The estate’s distribution statement, the first statement on the new account and every closing statement are what prove the source years later.

Spending the inheritance on the family is a choice a married person is free to make, and plenty of people make it deliberately. The point of these habits is that the choice should be made on purpose. Money paid toward a marital expense is gone from the separate column, and nobody can recover it in a divorce.

4. What Happens to an Inherited House in a Divorce?

A house inherited by one spouse is nonmarital as long as title has not been transferred to the couple as tenants by the entirety. Florida’s statute says so directly for real property acquired by inheritance, which makes the deed the first thing to protect.

Adding a spouse to the deed is the step that changes the answer. A deed to both spouses as tenants by the entirety makes the house presumptively marital, and the spouse who inherited it must then prove it is not. Since 2024 Florida’s statute requires a gift of real property between spouses to be made in a writing that meets the formal requirements for a deed, so a casual promise to share the house is not enough to make the gift. Signing a deed is.

Florida’s homestead rules create a separate question. A husband who sells an inherited house that has become the family home will usually need his wife to sign the deed, because the Florida Constitution protects a spouse’s interest in the homestead. The statute provides that a spouse who joins in a homestead deed to someone else does not, by joining, turn the house or its sale proceeds into marital property. The caution runs the other way. A deed that names the spouse as an owner, rather than as a joining signer, is the deed that creates the presumption.

Marital money paid on the mortgage gives the other spouse a measured share. When a mortgage on nonmarital real property is paid down with marital funds, the principal paid and a portion of the passive appreciation become marital under a formula in the statute (the marital share of the appreciation tracks the share of the principal paid from marital money). A $250,000 inherited condo carrying a $100,000 mortgage that the couple pays off from their paychecks will leave the spouse who inherited it with most of the condo and the other spouse with a claim to part of the equity. Paying the mortgage from the inheritance account avoids the claim. The page on inheriting a house in Florida covers the probate side.

5. How Can a Parent Protect a Child’s Inheritance From Divorce?

A parent who leaves a child’s share in a trust for the child’s lifetime, rather than outright, keeps the inheritance from ever becoming the child’s property to mix into a joint account. The child can still benefit from it every year. The trustee pays for the house, the grandchildren’s school and medical bills, and the principal stays in the trust.

The kind of trust decides what a former spouse can reach. Where the trustee has discretion over whether to pay, a creditor of the beneficiary, including a spouse or former spouse, cannot force a distribution or attach the beneficiary’s interest. Where the trust carries a spendthrift clause (a clause that bars the beneficiary from pledging or selling the interest and bars creditors from seizing it), a former spouse holding a court order for alimony can ask the court to attach distributions, but only as a last resort once the usual ways of collecting have failed. The Florida spendthrift trust page covers the clause, and protecting your child’s inheritance covers the choices a parent makes in drafting.

Choosing the trustee is part of the protection. A child who is the sole trustee of his own share and may pay himself anything he wants has a trust that looks a great deal like his own money. An independent co-trustee, or a distribution standard tied to health, education and support, keeps the line clear. The page on what happens to a trust in a divorce covers the trusts a married person creates for himself, which work differently.

6. Can a Prenup or Postnup Protect an Inheritance?

A written agreement between spouses can settle the question before anyone has to trace a dollar. Florida’s divorce statute treats as nonmarital any asset the spouses excluded from the marital estate by a valid written agreement, along with anything acquired in exchange for it. Florida’s premarital agreement statute lets the couple contract about property of either spouse whenever and wherever acquired, so a prenup can cover an inheritance that has not arrived yet.

A good agreement does more than repeat the statute. The agreement can say that an inheritance stays separate even if it passes through a joint account for a closing, that its income stays separate even when the family spends some of it, and that the growth on an inherited house stays with the spouse who inherited it. A closing, the family budget and an inherited house are the three places where an inheritance usually leaks into the marital estate. Our pages on the Florida prenuptial agreement and the Florida postnuptial agreement explain how each is signed.

Timing changes the formalities. Before the wedding, Florida requires no financial disclosure for a waiver of a spouse’s rights at death, though a prenup that turns out to be unconscionable can still be thrown out in a divorce if the other spouse received no fair disclosure, did not waive disclosure in writing and had no adequate knowledge of the other’s finances. After the wedding, each spouse must make a fair disclosure of his or her estate for the waiver of death rights to hold. Both spouses should have their own lawyer.

7. Is an Inheritance Treated Differently at Death?

Yes, and the difference surprises people. In a divorce, Florida sets an inheritance apart. At death, a surviving spouse can claim the elective share, which is 30% of the elective estate, and the elective estate counts the deceased spouse’s probate estate, revocable trust, jointly held and pay-on-death accounts and interest in the homestead without asking where any of it came from. A wife who kept her inheritance perfectly separate for thirty years still leaves it inside the number her husband can claim 30% of.

An inherited house that becomes the family home carries Florida’s homestead rules as well. A married owner cannot leave the homestead away from a surviving spouse by will, so a husband who means to leave his late mother’s house to his own children needs a valid waiver from his wife.

A waiver closes both gaps. A surviving spouse may waive the elective share and homestead rights, before or after the marriage, in a written agreement signed in front of two witnesses, which is why most prenups and postnups carry one. A child’s inheritance held in a parent’s trust also generally stays out of the child’s elective estate, because the child did not put it there. The page on the Florida elective share explains the 30% rule in full.

What Does It Cost to Protect an Inheritance?

A prenuptial or postnuptial agreement is a flat fee quoted at consult, because the work moves with the assets and with whether each spouse already has a lawyer. For a parent, the Protected Trust Plan, which keeps each child’s share in trust for that child’s life, is a flat fee from $4,700 ($6,000 for a couple), and the Complete Trust Plan is a flat fee from $3,200. We do not represent either spouse in a divorce. If a divorce has been filed or is about to be, a family law attorney should handle the case, and we can coordinate on the estate documents. Recording and other government costs are additional and passed through at cost. Advertised fees are honored for 90 days from the posted date.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The engaged daughter with an inheritance coming. A woman’s mother is ill, and the estate will leave the daughter about $600,000 and a condo in Sarasota. The wedding is next spring. A prenup that names the expected inheritance, its income and the condo as separate property, whatever account they pass through, settles the question before the money arrives, and the agreement carries an elective share waiver that matches her will.

The husband who used the joint account for a closing. A man inherits $140,000, deposits it into the joint account for a week, and wires it to buy a lake cabin titled in his name. The deposit created a presumption that half was a gift to his wife, and the cabin was bought with commingled money. A postnup signed now, with full disclosure on both sides, can confirm the cabin as his.

The father worried about his son’s marriage. A father plans to leave his son $1 million and does not trust the son’s marriage. The father leaves the share in a lifetime trust with an independent co-trustee, so the trustee can pay for the son’s house and the grandchildren’s college while the principal stays out of any joint account.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §61.075(1) (nonmarital assets set apart; marital assets divided from a premise of equality); (6)(a)1.b. (enhancement from marital effort or funds is marital); (6)(a)1.c. (mortgage paydown from marital funds and the passive appreciation formula); (6)(a)1.d. (interspousal gift of real property requires a writing complying with §689.01; joinder in a homestead deed to a third party does not change character); (6)(a)2. to 4. (entireties property presumed marital; clear and convincing standard for the gift presumption); (6)(b)2., 3., 4., 6. (inheritances and their exchanges, their income, assets excluded by written agreement, inherited real property not retitled as tenants by the entirety); (7) (cut-off date); (8) (presumption that assets acquired during the marriage are marital). Retrieved October 2, 2026.
• Fla. Stat. §61.079(4)(a)1., 3. and (7)(a) (premarital agreement may govern property whenever acquired and its disposition on dissolution; grounds for nonenforcement).
• Fla. Stat. §732.2035 (property entering the elective estate, including transfers by the decedent); §732.2065 (elective share is 30 percent of the elective estate); §732.702(1), (2) (waiver of spousal rights before or after marriage, two witnesses, fair disclosure if signed after marriage). Fla. Const. art. X, §4(c) (restriction on devise of homestead; spouse joins in the alienation of homestead).
• Fla. Stat. §736.0504 (annotated)(2) (discretionary distributions cannot be compelled or attached by a beneficiary’s creditor); §736.0503 (annotated)(2)(a), (3) (spendthrift clause yields to a spouse or former spouse with a support or alimony order, as a last resort).
• Separate-account test and joint-account gift presumption: Lakin v. Lakin, 901 So. 2d 186, 190 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005), and Williams v. Williams, 686 So. 2d 805, 808 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997), as quoted in Sorgen. Account in one name becoming marital: Steiner v. Steiner, 746 So. 2d 1149, 1150 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999), as quoted in Dravis v. Dravis, 170 So. 3d 849 (Fla. 2d DCA 2015).
• Case retold below: Sorgen v. Sorgen, 162 So. 3d 45 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014). Opinion read in full; retrieved October 2, 2026.

The Sisters’ House That Ended Up in the Divorce

I have come across a case where a wife did the first part exactly right with an inherited house and still lost the argument over it.

Before she married, a woman in Broward County inherited a one-third share of a home, and her two sisters inherited the rest. The three rented it out and kept the rent in a separate account. After the wedding she bought out her sisters (she said with her share of the rent money, and her husband said with joint money). The couple then renovated the house with joint funds, deposited the rent into their joint account and paid the taxes from it. When they sold, the proceeds went into the joint account too, and the money sat there for ten years while the couple traded stocks with it. When her husband filed for divorce, she moved the money into an account in her own name. The trial judge agreed her one-third stayed hers. The Fourth District reversed in 2014, because the deposit of the sale proceeds into the joint account created a presumption that she had given her husband half, and she offered no evidence to rebut it.

Having read that opinion against the statute it applies, I have a few take-home points.

The first is the account. Before the wedding she had the right structure, a separate account holding only the inheritance’s income, and the years of joint deposits after the wedding, ending with the sale proceeds, undid it.

The second is timing. Moving the money into her own name once the divorce was filed changed nothing, because the character of the money was fixed by what the couple did with it during the marriage. Avoid letting the proceeds of an inherited asset land in a joint account, even for the length of a closing.

The third is the parent’s choice. Three daughters inheriting a house together can work, but a parent who leaves each daughter’s share in a trust keeps the rent, the renovation and the sale proceeds out of every marriage. One limit is worth stating plainly. The opinion does not give the size of the sale proceeds, and it did not decide whose money bought out the sisters, so it does not say what the reversal was worth.

Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. The case described above is a decision of a Florida court rather than a matter handled by this firm. We do not handle divorce cases. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Updated on October 2, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Each spouse should have independent counsel. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.