Legal Question in Family Law in California

Re: change the will

You may not change the charactarization (i.e. ownership) of assets of the marriage. A will does not confer ownership interests until death, and a will is not title to property. As you are not dead yet, you may change your will. This does raise an interesting issue as to whether you may change the characterization of assets held in a trust. If the trust is revocable, you probably cannot as your spoouse arguably has a community ownership in the trust assets. However, if the trust is irrevocable, then your trustee, who is not you, probably can change the character of the trust assets, but it would be a very good idea for him to obtain court supervision and direction. I wonder if you could change the beneficiay designation on a revocable trust held in your name only. I think you probably can as the beneficiaries have no interest until you die. But your spouse may claim to have a community property interest in your trust assets. So, to be safe, I would get court approval, or just wait until the divorce is final. The judge will probably say something like, "You don't need approval for something like this," at which point you can rest assured that you will not be held in contempt of court.