I Owned A House Before Marriage. Do I Still Own It After A Divorce? (Nevada Specific Laws)

Divorce raises tough questions, and if you owned a house before your marriage, you’re probably wondering if you alone get to keep it after the divorce. The answer depends on Nevada’s community property laws and whether that home remained separate property or got mixed into the marital pot. In this report, we’ll break down in plain language how Nevada law treats a premarital home in divorce. We’ll explain what counts as separate property, what counts as community property, and how things like commingling funds (mixing your money), paying the mortgage with marital earnings, or an increase in the home’s value during marriage could affect who owns what. We’ll also touch on how other assets and debts are divided.

You can use our custom calculator to estimate how the value of your home might be affected by divorce:  https://kelleherandkelleher.com/nevada-property-division-calculator/

Nevada Community Property Basics

Nevada is one of nine community property states. This means that any property (or debt) a couple acquires during the marriage is considered community property, belonging equally to both spouses. In a divorce, the court will usually divide community property 50/50 between the spouses. Community property isn’t just real estate; it includes things like earnings either spouse made during marriage, items bought with those earnings, joint bank accounts, cars purchased while married, and even pensions or retirement savings accumulated in that time. Likewise, debts incurred during the marriage (credit cards, loans, etc.) are community debts that both spouses share and must be divided equally.

On the flip side, separate property is not split in a divorce. Each party keeps their own separate property. Separate property typically includes assets someone already owned before the marriage, as well as certain categories of property acquired during marriage that the law sets apart (like gifts or inheritances given to one spouse, and personal injury settlements for one spouse). We’ll dig into the definitions next, because knowing what counts as separate vs. community property is the key to figuring out what happens to your pre-marriage house.

If all this is confusing, set an appointment to speak to a divorce attorney who can walk you through it, answering all your questions.

Separate Property vs. Community Property in Nevada

Before we get into what happens to your house, let’s clarify these two big concepts:

What Counts as Separate Property?

Under Nevada law, separate property is basically what you own individually. The Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) §123.130 defines separate property as all property of a spouse owned by him or her before marriage, plus anything acquired afterward by certain individual means (for example: by gift, bequest, devise, descent, or a personal injury award). In plain English, separate property includes:

• Property you owned before marriage. For example, a house you bought before you tied the knot, or a car you already had in your name, is your separate property.
• Gifts or inheritances received by one spouse during the marriage. If your great-aunt left you an inheritance or your parent gifted you money to you alone, that remains your separate property, as long as you keep it separate.
• Personal injury awards to one spouse. If you received a settlement or award for a personal injury (e.g. from a car accident lawsuit) during the marriage, that is also considered your separate property.

Everything that falls in these categories is yours alone, not subject to a 50/50 split. Nevada law even says the “rents, issues and profits” of your separate property are also separate. That means if your separate property produces income (say you rent out a house you owned before marriage), that income is usually still separate property, provided you keep it separate (more on this soon).

Importantly, each spouse normally gets to keep their separate property in a divorce. The court does not divide what you brought into the marriage or received individually during marriage; those remain with the original owner. There are exceptions to these general rules, though. The biggest pitfall is commingling. If you aren’t careful and mix your separate property with marital property, you could accidentally turn some (or all) of it into community property. As one Nevada legal guide put it, separate property keeps its separate status after marriage, but great care must be taken to avoid commingling it with the community. We’ll explain commingling in a moment, since it’s especially important for a house scenario.

What Counts as Community Property?

Community property in Nevada covers almost everything else, namely, all property acquired by either spouse during the marriage (that isn’t separate property by definition). NRS §123.220 spells it out: “All property, other than that stated in NRS 123.130, acquired after marriage by either husband or wife, or both, is community property…” In short, if you or your spouse got it while you were married, it’s presumed to belong to both of you equally. Some examples of community property and earnings include:

• Income earned during marriage: Each paycheck either spouse brought home while married is community property (no matter who earned it).
• Purchases made during marriage: If you bought a house together during the marriage, that house is community property. Same goes for cars, furniture, TVs, and other assets bought with marital earnings. Even if only one spouse’s name is on the title, if it was bought with marital funds, it’s likely community property.
• Joint bank accounts and savings: Money saved from either spouse’s salary during marriage is community property. If you deposit both spouses’ incomes into a joint account, that account is filled with community funds.
• Retirement contributions during marriage: Funds added to a 401(k) or pension during the marriage are community property (even if the account was started before marriage, the part contributed during the marriage belongs to both spouses).
• Debts incurred during marriage: Debts work the same way. If you or your spouse took on a debt while married (credit card debt, loans, etc.), both of you are on the hook equally for it in the divorce.

Nevada courts will split community property (and debts) equally (50/50) in a divorce. It’s the default rule because community property is seen as belonging to the marital “community” of both spouses. Only in rare cases can a court depart from an exact equal split (for example, if one spouse wasted assets or there are other compelling reasons, a court might give a bit more to one side). But you should expect a roughly equal division of all community assets.

Now, let’s get to your specific question (the house you owned before marriage) and see how these rules play out.

Your Home Owned Before Marriage: Will You Still Own It After Divorce?

If you came into the marriage already owning a house in your name, that house began as your separate property. By default, in a Nevada divorce, you don’t have to split a house you owned before the wedding; it’s yours to keep as separate property. In principle, the court would not give your spouse any portion of the pre-marriage property’s value. Real life is a bit more complicated, though. The key question is: Did the status of that house stay purely separate, or did something during the marriage cause part of it to become “community” property?

Several factors can change the picture:

• If no marital funds or efforts were ever invested into the house during the marriage, it likely remains entirely your separate property, and you’ll own it outright post-divorce.
• If community funds (like your salaries or joint savings) were used to pay the mortgage, make improvements, or otherwise contribute to the house, then your spouse (the marital community) might have acquired an interest in part of the home.
• If the house’s value increased during the marriage, the reason for that increase matters. A rise in value purely due to market conditions might still be considered your separate property growth. But an increase due to improvements or paying down the loan with marital money gives the community a stake in that increase.
• If you changed the title during the marriage (for example, adding your spouse’s name to the deed or refinancing in both names), you may have legally transmuted (transformed) the house from separate to jointly-owned. Nevada law presumes that if you gift part of your separate property to your spouse or to the marriage (say, by putting it in both names), you intended to make it community property.

Let’s break these scenarios down:

Scenario 1: Keeping the House Truly Separate Throughout the Marriage

The best-case scenario (for keeping your house) is that you never mixed marital finances or ownership with the home. If you maintained the property strictly with separate funds and kept it titled in your name only, it should remain 100% your separate property. For instance, maybe you:

• Paid the mortgage and taxes using money you had before marriage or from a separate account, not with your or your spouse’s post-wedding earnings.
• Never used joint accounts or your spouse’s income to pay for any house expenses. Perhaps you even rented out the house and used that rental income (which, as income from separate property, can be separate if isolated properly) to cover the mortgage.
• Kept the title in your name only and did not add your spouse to the deed or loan.

If all of the above are true, then congratulations! You have successfully insulated your pre-marriage home from the community property pot. In practice, this is hard to do, and most couples don’t live this way (because marriages usually involve financial mingling). But it’s possible. One Nevada attorney gives an example: if you enter the marriage with a house and a separate bank account (just in your name), and you never deposit any community earnings into that account and use it solely to manage the property (paying for maintenance, etc.), there’s a “pretty good chance you can prevent your spouse from getting an interest in your house.” In that case, at divorce the house would still be entirely yours.

The main point here is that strict separation is required. As soon as you start paying a pre-marriage mortgage with your paycheck earned during marriage, you’ve introduced community property into the mix. Likewise, if you use marital funds to remodel the kitchen or pay the property insurance, the wall between separate and community starts to break down. That brings us to commingling.

Scenario 2: Using Marital Funds for the House (Commingling of Property)

Commingling is the legal term for mixing separate property with community property. When separate and community funds get entangled, it can change the character of the property. In Nevada, if you commingle your separate property home with community funds, you may inadvertently give the community (and thus your spouse) a piece of that home. A Nevada family law article warns: a spouse who “has sloppily commingled separate and community assets may risk having formerly separate property treated as community property.” In other words, if you mix things up too much, the court might decide the house (or a portion of its value) is now community property that should be divided.

How can commingling happen with a house? Common ways include:

• Paying the mortgage or property bills with community funds: For example, you owned the house before, but during the marriage you and your spouse use your paychecks (community money) to pay the monthly mortgage, property taxes, homeowners insurance, or for major repairs. By doing so, you’re using community assets to build equity in a separate asset.
• Using the house as if it were jointly owned: Perhaps you treated the home as the “family home,” both partners put money and sweat equity into it, or you promised a share to your spouse. If the house was effectively used like a marital asset, a judge may view it as having a community component.
• Hopelessly mixing funds: Say you had money from before marriage, but you merged it into a joint account with your spouse and that account was used for the house expenses among other things. If separate and community funds are so intermingled that it’s impossible to trace the source, the entire fund (and whatever it bought) might be deemed community property.

In Nevada, it’s possible for property to have both a separate property portion and a community property portion. It doesn’t automatically become “all community” just because you commingled; the law tries to apportion (divide) the interests fairly. For example, a house owned before marriage can still have an underlying separate part (the value/equity you already had before marriage), and a community part (the value attributable to payments or improvements made during marriage with marital funds). Courts will often engage in a tracing or accounting process to figure out what portion is which. If you can clearly identify and trace a separate contribution, the court may “give back” to that spouse their separate investment. (That citation was discussing giving back a separate-property down payment that was put into a community property home, but the principle works in reverse too: compensating the community for contributions to a separate property home.)

So, in a divorce, your spouse might claim a reimbursement or an equitable share of the house’s equity because community money helped maintain or pay for it. Here’s a simple example: You had a $200,000 mortgage on the house when you married. Over the marriage, you and your spouse paid off $50,000 of that principal with your earnings. That $50,000 reduction came from community funds, so the community may be credited $50,000 of the home’s equity (and possibly a share of appreciation, as we’ll discuss next). Nevada law would not necessarily give your spouse half the house in this case, but it would mean the community contributions (and any growth related to them) are accounted for when dividing property.

The “Malmquist” rule: Nevada has a well-known court case, Malmquist v. Malmquist (1990), which established a formula for these situations. The Malmquist formula is used “to calculate the portion of the increase in equity of a residence that was owned prior to the marriage by one party when community funds have gone toward the residence.” In plainer terms, Malmquist provides a math method to split the equity fairly when a premarital house is partly paid for with marital money. Without diving into the math, the result is typically that you keep the original value of the home as your separate property, and any increase in equity during marriage is divided proportional to the contributions. Your spouse (the community) would get a piece reflecting how much marital funds contributed to the equity gain.

Many people are surprised by this outcome. It feels counter-intuitive: “It’s my house; I bought it before we even met!” But when both spouses pour money into it for years, Nevada law sees it as both have a stake. One legal explainer put it this way (with a bit of humor): people often are “shocked and appalled when they find out that contributing community paychecks to pay for the mortgage every month for 10 years means that their spouse has gained a financial interest in a portion of the home.” The key phrase is “a portion of the home,” not the whole thing. Your spouse doesn’t automatically get half of a house you owned before marriage, but they are likely entitled to some portion of its value if their community property contributions helped build that value.

The good news (if you’re the one who owned the house) is that Nevada courts recognize your separate property stake. They won’t ignore that you brought the house into the marriage. They will try to calculate your separate portion vs. the community portion. The Malmquist formula or similar equitable apportionment will give you the pre-marriage equity and any purely separate increase, and only the marital portion of equity is split. This is fair because it gives your spouse credit for what was contributed during the marriage, but it doesn’t rob you of what you had before.

Scenario 3: Increases in Home Value During the Marriage

One special aspect to consider is how the home’s appreciation (change in value) is handled. Let’s say your house was worth $300,000 when you got married and $400,000 by the time of divorce. That’s a $100,000 increase. Who owns that increase? The answer depends on why the value went up:

• Passive Appreciation (Market-Driven): If the home’s value rose simply due to market conditions (for example, the local real estate market heated up and prices climbed), and not because of actions taken during the marriage, that appreciation might still be viewed as your separate property increase. Nevada law acknowledges that if there was “no active effort to increase the value during the marriage,” some or all of the increase can be deemed separate property. In other words, if your house just got lucky in the market and neither spouse put significant money or labor into boosting its value, the gain may belong to the original separate owner.
• Active Appreciation (Marriage-Driven): If the property value increased due to active efforts or investments during the marriage, then the increase is likely community property (at least in part). Active efforts include things like using community funds to pay down the mortgage (thus building equity), or funding a remodel that substantially raises the home’s value. In such cases, Nevada holds that any increase in value during marriage counts as community property. This makes sense: the increase didn’t just happen; it was achieved with marital resources or labor. That $100,000 gain in our example would be allocated between you and your spouse by the court. Again, typically it would be shared in proportion to contributions, often via the Malmquist calculation or a similar approach. If, say, 50% of the home’s equity at divorce is attributable to marital payments, the spouse might get roughly 50% of that $100,000 gain (not necessarily 50% of the whole home). Every case can differ in the specifics, but the principle is that marital contributions create marital equity.

The concept of passive vs. active appreciation can be nuanced. But for a layperson’s perspective, just remember: if the marriage did nothing to cause the increase, it leans toward separate; if the marriage (through money or effort) helped cause the increase, it leans toward community. In reality, even market-driven appreciation may be partly subject to division if, for example, marital funds were paying the mortgage that allowed you to capture that market gain. Can you see why it’s important to get a very skilled divorce attorney to make sure all this is correctly presented to the courts? At Kelleher and Kelleher, we are true specialists at this kind of work.

Scenario 4: Changing the Title or Gifting an Interest to Your Spouse

One more factor that can decisively affect ownership is how the title (deed) of the house is held. If during the marriage you decided to add your spouse’s name to the deed, or you transferred the house into both of your names as joint owners, the law may treat that as you gifting half the house to the community (or directly to your spouse). In community property states, placing an asset in joint title can create a presumption of transmutation, basically, a presumption that you intended to convert your separate property into a community asset by making a gift of it. As Nevada lawyers explain, transmutation can occur by “a gift from one spouse to the other”, and a clear example is using a deed to transfer ownership. If a wife, for instance, signs a deed giving her half of a separately owned house to her husband, that’s viewed as a gift and the home becomes the husband’s sole property in that example. Likewise, if you owned the home and put it in both names, a court will likely see that as you gifting an equal interest to your spouse, meaning the house is now a community property asset (each of you 50/50 owners).

This doesn’t mean it’s impossible to prove otherwise. Sometimes spouses add a name for convenience or refinancing purposes. But be aware: titles matter. If you titled the home as “Husband and Wife, Joint Tenants” or placed it into a joint trust as community property, you’ve given your spouse a legal interest that will be recognized at divorce. There is a gift presumption in Nevada that when one spouse places separate property into joint ownership, it’s considered a gift to the marital community. Overcoming that presumption in court can be difficult, barring evidence (e.g., a written agreement) that you didn’t intend a gift.

Bottom line: If you never changed the title and kept the deed in your name only, you avoided this particular pitfall. But if you did add your spouse, expect the house to be treated (at least partly) as a joint asset in the divorce. You might then have to either buy out your spouse’s share or agree to sell the house and split the proceeds, depending on what the court orders or what settlement you reach.

(One tip for others reading this: If you’re bringing a significant separate asset like a house into a marriage and want to protect it, consider a premarital agreement (prenup) explicitly confirming it will remain your separate property no matter what. Nevada allows prenups on property division, though they have strict requirements. Absent a prenup, the next best practice is to avoid commingling; for example, use only separate funds for that asset and don’t put it in joint names.)

Final Thoughts and Helpful Resources

Going through a divorce is challenging, but knowing your property rights can reduce some stress. In Nevada, if you owned a house before marriage, you have a strong claim to keep that house as your separate property, especially if you kept it independent of the marriage finances. Nevada’s community property laws aim to give both spouses an equal share of what was earned or built together. At the same time, the law respects what each person brought into the marriage or received individually. The outcome for your premarital home will hinge on whether it stayed separate or became partly community through commingling, contributions, or title changes. If it stayed truly separate, it’s all yours. If marital funds helped build equity, expect to compensate your spouse for that marital portion (but you’ll keep your original portion).

Every situation is unique, so consider consulting Kelleher & Kelleher if substantial assets like a home are on the line. Your attorney can run a Malmquist calculation or otherwise advocate for a fair division.