If my father gave me shares in the family business a couple months after I married my husband. We were married for 16 years and I held on to those shares. I never worked outside the home during the marriage, but our joint filed tax returns show we took a loss every year to the family business, does that give him claim to the business? I own 25%. He claims he helped support the business with his income throughout the marriage and gave me the ability to not have to take an income from the business and that was his contribution making this marital property. The business is worth millions in assets today. Will I have to share the value of my portion of the business with him? By my having this business, will that effect any claim to alimony I may have had without it? I don’t know if this will make a difference, but I failed to tell him about my ownership about the business, he found out after our divorce, but before we worked out the court issues. So he didn’t know about any finiancial contributions he made during the marriage.
While property gifted to a spouse by a third party remains the separate of that spouse unless gifted to the marriage. In this case, my opinion there may be a martial portion to your share of the business based on his active contribution to the same.
The business value and the potential income you may receive from it can be accounted for in the alimony piece of the case.