Legal Question in Family Law in California

Re: Dividing Assets

That's complicated. Before marriage, your rights are essentially contractual, meaning what was your agreement? To overcome the CA Civil Code title presumption, you have to have "clear and convincing evidence." So if he lies about your deal, you have proof problems. If you can prove (which I assume you can) the downpayment from your parents, you should win that the deal was 50/50 or whatever it was, but nothing is a lock in these cases. During marriage, a different set of rules applies. Again, we start with title, so you have a presumption that it is his separate property, then if you can prove the deal was different great, if not, at a minimum you have a "Moore/Marsden" interest, meaning the community property estate gains an interest proportional to the pay down of the principal on the mortgage during marriage, so you get 1/2 of that. Lastly, on commingling, if the funds can't be traced, you'll split them, but if he can trace the money trail, just because he put the money in a joint account doesn't mean he can't prove a separate property interest.

Got it? Alrighty then.