Separate property in Colorado.

The Rules

Three ways in, many ways out.

Premarital assets, inheritances, and gifts to one spouse start as separate property. Two forces erode that status. First, Colorado's appreciation rule: the increase in a separate asset's value during the marriage is generally marital — the underlying asset can remain yours if proven and traced, but its growth since the wedding is on the table. Second, commingling: deposit the inheritance into the joint account, retitle the condo into both names, run marital dollars through the separate LLC, and the separate character blurs — not always fatally, but the tracing gets harder, more expensive, and sometimes impossible.

The claimant bears the burden. Years later, you will need the paper: statements from the date of marriage, the inheritance distribution records, every transfer in between. I build tracing files the way I build trial exhibits, because that is exactly what they become.

Keeping It Separate

Discipline now, or litigation later.

For clients still married — or marrying — the playbook is simple and almost never followed: keep separate assets in separate, single-name accounts; never deposit marital earnings into them; keep contemporaneous records of value at marriage; and where the stakes justify it, put the characterization in writing through a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement, which remains the only genuinely reliable way to keep future appreciation separate. A morning of good titling prevents a year of forensic accounting.

Common Questions

The characterization questions I hear most.

Related: Property Division  ·  Prenuptial Agreements  ·  Trust Interests