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Illinois Law - Does a Gift To A Spouse Become Non-Marital Property? A gift becomes the non-marital property of the recipient. Cases: Lee (1993) 186 Ill.Dec. 257, 246 Ill.App.3d 628, 615 N.E.2d 1314 (Under the peculiar circumstances of this case, a ring given by the husband to the wife during the marriage was found to be marital property. The ring was valued at $20,000 and had been purchased with marital funds. Typically, this would become the separate property of the wife. However, in this case, the husband had attached a note to the gift saying that the wife would own the ring only as long as the couple stayed married. As a result, the ring remained marital property. The judge did award the ring to the wife as part of her portion of the marital estate. The parties were married for 17 years and had two children, one of whom was a minor at the time of the divorce.) Weiler (1994) 629 N.E.2d 1216 (The assets should have been valued at the date of the trial. The lower court erred by valuing them as of nine months earlier. The court should have pro-rated the contributions and earnings for the nine months after the last corporate contribution to the plan and before the trial date. In this case, the husband had a defined contribution pension. The husband had argued that some of the money accumulated in the plan after the marriage was non-marital. The husband's theory was that some of the accruals were earnings on the pre-marriage portion, and therefore were the husband's separate property. The court appeared to agree with the husband's reasoning. But the court disagreed with his method of calculation and sent the case back to the lower court for a recount. (Note: Most courts in most states would reject the husband's theory, here. Most courts say that all increases after the marriage in a defined contribution plan, including earnings on pre-marriage deposits, are marital property.) The court also found that a $4,000 contribution to the wife's IRA constituted a spousal gift, and caused that IRA to be his wife's separate property. In this case, the husband had testified that he had intended to make a gift and to give his wife total control over that money.)
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