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California Family Law - Community and Separate Property - The Law Offices of Andy I. Chen - YouTube
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Hi everybody, it's Andy and welcome again to my office in Los Altos, California. I'm
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an attorney licensed to practice law
in California as well as New York. This
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video is going to be a really quick
primer, I guess, on California community
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property. So community property. in
general, it's going to be the framework
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within which California will divide the
property that is acquired or owned by
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two parties in the event of a divorce.
So, for example, husband and wife when they're
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married they acquire a bunch of property.
When that, when that marriage ends in
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divorce, community property will
determine how the courts will divide
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that property. So community property
right now in the United States is used
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by approximately ten states,
predominantly concentrated on the west
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coast, so Pacific time zone. If you are
one of my New York viewers, for example,
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Equitable Distribution actually is what
applies to you. So community property
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does not apply to you. Equitable
Distribution is the schematic instead.
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So I don't have it yet, but eventually I
hope to have a video on New York
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Equitable Distribution. If and when I get
I'm going to go ahead and link it right over
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here. So if you see a little annotation
bubble pop up that means I actually got
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around to recording it. So but the
general idea is going to be that
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anything acquired by a married couple
from the date they got married to the
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date they actually separate, that's going
to be a community property. And in the
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event of a divorce, that stuff is
generally going to be divided 50/50. Um,
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so the thing is, it can also be kind of
modified slightly 60/40, etc, depending on
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the situation, but 50/50 should be the
general rule. The definition of community
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property is going to be in California
Family Code section 760, which I'm going to
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go ahead and link and paste down below.
So go ahead and take a look at that if
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you are so interested. So the flip side
of the coin is going to be separate
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property. So separate property is going
to be defined in California Family
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Code section 770, which I'm also going to
go ahead and paste and link down below.
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But the general idea is going to be
anything acquired by either spouse
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before they got married - so the thing is
let's say husband owned this guitar
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before or wife owned this, you know, road bicycle or something - that stuff is going to be
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the separate property of that
spouse and in the event of a divorce, the
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husband gets his guitar, the wife gets
her, you know, road bike, etc. So that is,
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um, kind of the most common, I guess, or
general separate property situation.
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There's also some situations in which a
spouse, let's say the husband, acquires
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something by gift or inheritance, that's
also going to be separate property, even
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though it happened between date of
marriage and date of separation. Same
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thing for the wife. If the wife receives
something during the marriage as a gift
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or as an inheritance, that's going to be
separate property also and in the event
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of a divorce, you know, the wife will get
whatever she inherited, er, the wife
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will get whatever she inherited or
received by gift and same thing with the
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husband. So that's kind of a very simple
way of describing it. So that stuff
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that's entirely community, stuff that is
entirely separate. The problem usually
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comes up if there's something that is
partially community and partially
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separate. The most common example that I run into is actually a house. So I'll
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give you this kind of situation. Let's
say, for example, that the husband bought
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a house on his own when he was still
single and he pays his mortgage for a
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couple years and then maybe, say, five or six years in he decides to get
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married and after the marriage the
husband and wife together pay the
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mortgage out of their earnings. So in the
event of a divorce, that period for when
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the husband paid the mortgage on his own, that part is is separate. After he
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got married and the wife and the husband
together paid for the mortgage, that part
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is community. So the battle in a case
like that, if there is a battle, it's
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going to be how to determine what
percentage is community, what percentage
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is separate. So hopefully that makes
sense. That's a really basic kind of overview
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of community property law. There's
stuff that is entirely community. There's
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stuff that's entirely separate. There's
also property, or assets rather, that are,
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you know, a combination of community and separate depending on the situation. So
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hopefully that helps. If you are outside
of California or in a equitable
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distribution state, hopefully all of that
made sense, but if you're in California,
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hopefully that helped you if you're
facing a case where community property
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is a, I guess, a thing that you guys are
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fighting about. So like I said, hopefully
that helps and I will talk to you guys
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next time.
Thanks.
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