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What is yours and what is mine? Married couples ask themselves these questions again and again, but from a legal perspective it is easy to answer: In the marriage, each partner keeps what was already theirs beforehand. The standard German marriage is a community of gains.
Anyone who gets married automatically switches to this matrimonial regime. The spouses’ assets then remain separate during the marriage; everything only comes on the table in the event of a divorce. Then it is calculated who accumulated how much assets during the marriage. Based on this, there is a so-called pension equalization, which regulates the amount of maintenance and redistributes pension entitlements. Upon request, the court will also compensate for gains (you can find out how this can be calculated here). Then the wealthier partner has to give something to the other. That’s how it works in most German marriages – but it doesn’t have to be.
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