During the duration of marriage (from the marriage to the legality of the termination of the marriage), the spouses acquire all property and income of any of them into the marital community property – the spouses´ joint ownership. According to Slovak legal regulation all their income is their common income, it is shared (except for the exceptions listed below).
Community property INCLUDES:
✔️ everything acquired by one of the spouses during the marriage (with exceptions like gift of inheritance), including the following
✔️ gifts given to both spouses
✔️ things bought and paid by common property money, or from the income of one of the spouses (as it is still part of the common property)
✔️ income from employment, from business, from renting real estate, from social insurance
✔️ winnings in the lottery
✔️ interest from the husband’s savings or deposits
✔️ payment from an insurance contract, payment from the title of damages
✔️ husband’s business share (depending on the circumstances)
✔️ also replacement claims according to Slovak law – there are two types:
a) the spouse can replace what he/she spent on common property (e.g. replacement of investments from his inheritance for the renovation of their common house), and
b) replacement of what was spent on property in his/her own ownership – individual ownership of one of the spouses (e.g. valuation of the property of one of the spouses by their common money –quite often the spouse live in such a house which belongs to only one of them)
✔️ be careful, the husband’s debts from credits or loans can also be paid from the funds in the common property ❗️
Community property does NOT include:
✖️ property, real or personal, either brought into the marriage by one spouse or acquired by one spouse during the marriage by his own inheritance or gift to him/her
✖️ the inheritance of one of the spouses
✖️ gifts to one of the spouses
✖️ things that, by their nature, serve the personal needs or the performance of the profession of only one of the spouses (mechanical tools, professional literature, work clothes…)
✖️ items issued within the framework of regulations on property restitution (specific historical legal regulation of Slovakia)
✖️ author’s works (but not the income from the works)
✖️ things obtained by transformation of exclusive property (e.g. the husband sells the apartment acquired by inheritance and buys a studio apartment with the money – his money only were transformed)
✖️ things obtained by crime
✖️ compensation for the injuries of one of the spouses
✖️ things that spouses remove from common property in advance by agreeing on the narrowing of common property
Common property can be canceled (or narrowed) during the marriage or settled after the divorce.
Everything jointly acquired can be settled (split) after the divorce.
Most often, only the real estate property of the spouses is settled (one continues to live there and pays the other spouse his share, or the property is sold and the spouses split the income from the sale).
Whatever the spouses want to settle, it is possible to do it by an agreement, which can also be, of course, “deposited” by attorney services in the real estate cadastre (no court proceedings are necessary).
