In our last article, we described the two most common marital property regimes in Brazil. Click here if you missed it. But we also promised we’d give you a few hypotheticals so you’d better understand the differences between the Comunhão de Bens and Separação de Bens regimes. So here you go.

Imagine you buy a car on January 1, and on February 1, you get married. Under the Comunhão Parcial de Bens regime, the car is yours. Even if you get divorced, you will remain the owner.

But let’s assume you get married under the Comunhão Universal de Bens regime, the car would be your property and your spouse’s property to be shared equally. It does not matter that you bought the car before getting married.

With both the Parcial and Universal regimes, a car purchased after marriage would be shared property. Let’s flip the dates in the example above. Now assume you got married on January 1 and bought the car on February 1. If you separate, both you and your spouse would have right to the car.

Our last article also discussed the Separação de Bens regime. Here, it does not matter when you bought the car or when you got married. The car will always belong to you. Under this regime, the owner of the property is the person who bought the property.

As you can see, choosing the right property regime from the start is key. It’s just one more way to avoid problems in the future.