In state of Wisconsin, if my wife purchased a vehicle and did not put my name on the vehicle title, is said vehicle legally half mine ?

Question

In state of Wisconsin, if my wife purchased a vehicle and did not put my name on the vehicle title, is said vehicle legally half mine ?

Answer

For couples who have not exercised their right to "opt out" of the WI Marital Property Act, most items purchased with marital property would in turn become marital property, which is a form of limited joint ownership. This would generally include items purchased with money earned as wages (as opposed to items purchased from non-marital property such as inherited or gifted funds). However, the spouse whose name appears on the paper title would normally still have the right to manage; control and transfer, lower value items (other than homestead real estate) without the consent of the non title holding spouse. Although a non-title holding spouse has the right to sue the spouse holding title for mismanagement, waste of neglect of marital assets, this right generally does not necessarily allow preventing the titled spouse from doing whatever that spouse sees fit with such property, within reason. If you have a serious dispute in this regard, the type of lawyer likely to have the most experience with these issues would be one who does a high volume of bankruptcy or collection related work. In both of these areas of law, creditors routinely go after the property of the non-obligated spouse when the opposing spouse defaults on a marital obligation. Victimization in such a collection is the most common means by which WI residents become educated to the pitfalls of the WI Marital Property Act. If you are concerned about such liabilities, you owe it to yourself to set up a consultation with such a lawyer, who can draft a document allowing both spouses to avoid such problems. This is particularly true where one spouse brings significantly more wealth into a marriage than the other. My comments in this public web forum are intended only for public educational purposes and are not legal advice specifically intended for you. Instead, you should retain a lawyer in order to meet your legal needs since I will be taking no action on your case. You are welcome to contact my Racine, WI office at 262-633-3090 or email me at [email protected]/* */ for further information if you desire it.