A cash dowry for a marrying daughter should be saved in a separate account, to avoid it being split in half after a divorce, a lawyer said on Friday.
With the divorce rate rising every year — Taiwan is ranked the second-highest in Asia for divorce, Ministry of the Interior data showed — people should plan how to handle their premarriage property, said lawyer Beck Liu (劉北元), who specializes in the Insurance Act (保險法).
Last year, 53,085 couples divorced, for a crude divorce rate of 2.18 per 1,000 people, the second-highest annual growth rate over the past decade, the data showed.
Photo: Tyrone Siu, Reuters
The distribution of residual marital property is a serious issue in divorce proceedings, as most married couples in Taiwan do not make a contract for the holding of matrimonial property and would be subject to the statutory regime once they divorce, Liu said.
It is important to save a cash dowry in a “clean” account that is opened before marriage and separate from other cash flows, instead of a savings account for use in daily life, he said.
For example, if parents prepare NT$1 million (US$30,638) as a dowry for their daughter, but put the money into her everyday account, which would have other cash inflows and outflows after marriage, then the dowry could not be detached from the rest of the capital in the account, he said.
The woman would end up with only NT$500,000 if she gets a divorce, as her cash dowry would be regarded as “residual marital property” and split in half, Liu said.
However, if the woman opens a separate account for her parents to deposit the cash dowry and refrains from using it after she is married, she could prove that the capital in the account is a dowry, which would not be deemed as property acquired in marriage and divided in divorce, he said.
Liu also suggested using insurance as a dowry to keep the capital intact, while also providing protection.
Parents could buy an insurance policy with their marrying daughter as the policyholder and the insured person, while using the cash dowry to make a lump-sum payment for the insurance premiums, he said.
The policy value reserve would not be counted as property acquired in marriage, as the insurance policy would be “acquired before marriage,” Liu said.
Although the insurance benefits would be acquired in the marriage, the cash payment for insurance premiums would not be deemed as acquired in the marriage as it was given by parents beforehand, thus keeping the dowry fully intact, he said.
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