Gloss to the Resolution of the Supreme Court of 19 October 2018 (III CZP 45/18). Substitution of Assets in Personal (Separate) Properties of Spouses under the Joint Marital Property

Abstract

The gloss contains remarks on the resolution of the Supreme Court of 19 October 2018 (III CZP 45/18), according to which an item acquired under the joint marital property regime and financed partly from the funds derived from the personal property of one of the spouses and from their joint property becomes the personal property of the spouse concerned and the joint property of the spouses in the proportion corresponding to the proportion of the funds allocated from those assets for its acquisition, unless the funds from the personal property or the joint property transferred for the acquisition of the property was an expense towards the joint or personal property, respectively. The gloss states that the rules of civil law concerning the formation of fractional joint ownership and the regulation of the joint marital property do not justify the thesis supported in the commented resolution. The conclusion of the gloss contains a proposal for interpretation that is different from that put forward in the resolution of the Supreme Court. It must be assumed that an asset acquired by both spouses or by one of them during the period of their joint marital property in exchange for funds derived from the joint property and personal property of one of the spouses becomes ex lege a component of the joint property of the spouses, unless, under the agreement of the spouses, it is acquired as a fractional joint property, one share of which goes to the joint property and the other to the personal property.