COMMINGLING (COMMINGLED)

1. In securities, it is the mixing of customer-owned securities with brokerage-owned securities.

2. In trust banking, it is the pooling of individual customer accounts into a fund, a share of which is owned by each contributing customer. This is similar to a mutual fund.

3. In real estate, it is the illegal act of a broker combining clients' funds with personal funds because, by law, a broker is required to use a separate trust or escrow fund to temporarily hold a client's funds.

In all contexts, commingling is mixing funds so that they are considered the same material fund. For example, if you deposit a paycheck into an inheritance fund, the paycheck would not be considered separate funds but part of the inheritance fund. Thus, the paycheck is no longer considered separate property from the inheritance.