Legal Question in Family Law in California

You never qualify for half of your spouse's property owned before marriage unless it is transmuted into community property by commingling it inextricably with community property or one of the other legally recognized methods of transmutation. The community may acquire some reimbursable interest in property owned before marriage if community property is contributed to the pre-owned property. So for example if H buys a house before marriage with a mortgage, and then during the marriage H and/or W's salary is used to pay the mortgage and remodel the kitchen, the community obtains a reimbursement interest in the property. Likewise retirement accounts may be commingled and then divided out based on what was there before the marriage and what was put in during the marriage. The accounting can get quite complicated. But there is no point at which one spouse just automatically gets half of pre-marriage property of the other spouse.

Property owned before marriage or acquired by gift or inheritance during marriage is separate property unless transmuted.