I owned the house before we got married. Does my spouse get half?
Not automatically — but probably not "none of it" either. In Minnesota, property you brought into the marriage is generally non-marital and stays yours. The complications grow from what happened during the marriage: appreciation tied to marital effort or marital money, a mortgage paid down from joint income, a remodel funded from a shared account. Those threads can weave a marital claim into a non-marital house.
The classic version: you bought it five years before the wedding, then spent fifteen married years paying it down together and renovating the kitchen with joint savings. The starting equity may stay yours; much of what grew after often doesn't. Tracing that line is genuinely technical — it turns on records, dates, and dollars — and it's exactly what family-law attorneys do. I'm not one, and this isn't legal advice.
What I can pin down is the property's value now and a grounded read on what it was worth when you married. Those two numbers are where your attorney starts.
I wrote this answer, and I stand behind it. I'm Chris Deutsch, a Minneapolis Realtor (MN #20382264). Twenty-five years of walking these neighborhoods, checking basements, and sitting across kitchen tables from people making exactly this call. I re-check every answer and date it — this one was last verified .
If your situation is more specific than the market, that's the one worth talking through. Email me at chris@lakesarearealty.com.