Legal Question in Family Law in California

Well husband I'm sorry to hear about the plans to file for divorce.

Firstly about your house. Even if the house is your separate property it is presumed any loan, improvements, etc. were paid with community property and in any divorce you're going to have to reimburse the wife half of the community contribution to your separate property. There are ways around that but it requires tracing the payments to separate property or making a transmutation agreement with her. Note you're more likely to get that kind of agreement with her living in the house right now then if you file for divorce.

Secondly about moving out and a deadline, take a look at this from another perspective. As a married couple you have legal obligations to support each other. Putting a deadline is not a good idea. Without a separation agreement, say you do file for divorce and she appears and says she has incurred $20K in debt for living expenses on her credit cards because you kicked her out without anywhere to go and she is still accumulating debt. Guess who may be faced helping to pay for those living expenses from separation, during the divorce proceedings, and possibly longer if you don't right now get all your ducks in a row before separation? Thus you should ether get a separation agreement, waiver of spousal support before physically separating, or allow her to stay while looking for a new place to go.

While its important to establish the separation date as early as possible (all income afterwards becomes separate property and is not community anymore) you don't need to be physically separate for that to happen. In fact you may try and say the "legal separation" was when she started being promiscuous, not when you found out about it. Thus all your income and property contributions after that date is your own separate property