Provisions of the New Marriage Law on Pre-marital Property

First, how does the new marriage law stipulate pre-marital property?

Property acquired before marriage belongs to individuals, and property acquired during marriage generally belongs to the joint property of husband and wife.

China's marriage law stipulates that in any of the following circumstances, it is the property of one of the spouses:

(1) one party's premarital property;

(2) Medical expenses, living allowance for the disabled, etc. One party gets it because of physical injury;

(3) Property determined to belong only to the husband or wife in the will or gift contract;

(4) Daily necessities used exclusively by one party;

(five) other property that should be owned by one party.

First, individuals buy a house before marriage and pay back the mortgage after marriage. At the time of divorce, the house is owned by the individual whose property right is registered, and the appreciation of the house is compensated.

Property acquired before marriage belongs to individuals, and property acquired during marriage generally belongs to the joint property of husband and wife. However, for a house purchased by one party through mortgage before marriage, it cannot be mechanically determined whether it is the joint property of husband and wife by the time of obtaining the real estate license. Because the money for buying a house is the personal property of one party before marriage, and the developer has paid all the house purchase money, all the creditor's rights confirmed in the house purchase contract are obtained before marriage, and obtaining the real estate license after marriage is only the natural transformation of property rights. Therefore, as long as the house purchase occurs before marriage, and the sales contract has been actually performed, and the house is registered in the buyer's personal name, it should be treated as personal property before marriage.

For both husband and wife, the repayment amount and the value-added of the house should be combined with the corresponding value-added part of the house, and the owner of the house should compensate the other party accordingly.

Second, the fruits and natural appreciation of personal property before marriage do not belong to the joint property of husband and wife.

The Marriage Law stipulates that the production, business income and intellectual property rights during the marriage relationship shall be owned by both husband and wife. Interpretation of Marriage Law (II) also stipulates that during the marriage relationship, "the income obtained by one party from personal property investment is the common property of husband and wife". However, in judicial practice, there are often disputes about how to deal with the value-added (such as gold, house price increase) or fruits (such as deposit interest) of premarital property itself.

Article 5 of Judicial Interpretation III of Marriage Law explains the basic principle of "fruits belong to the owner" in civil law, and also avoids the dispute whether property income belongs to "investment income" in practice. In other words, in the future, the personal property of one spouse before marriage, whether it is "investment" or "personal use" or both, is irrelevant. The income of this property during the marriage, except fruits and natural appreciation, belongs to the joint property of husband and wife.