Financial Asset and Emotion
The song Driving home for Christmas probably expresses best that a house is much more than a pile of bricks. That it is, in fact, a vital part of one’s wellbeing.
When preserving the family home is the goal, it might be advisable to work together with a notary to have a (new) marriage contract made, thereby creating – by notarial deed – community of property regarding only the matrimonial home(s). This, as the 2018 Tax Law states that this can be done without any tax consequences, provided any future division of the value of that community is to result in a 50/50 split.
This option can be useful in divorce cases where the spouses made a marriage contract agreeing to a separation of assets, but who now are looking for a reasonable solution, based on the fact that they consider the matrimonial home ‘joint’, despite how it was financed.
By Edith van Ruitenbeek
