Legal Question in Family Law in California

Yes you have legal rights, but I'm sorry to tell you they are unlikely worth much. If the house was purchased before marriage with title in the other spouse's name and you were never added to title, you never signed a quitclaim deed and don't have a prenuptial agreement, you have what's called a Moore/Marsden (case law) interest in the property, which means your interest is proportional to the community property used to pay down the principal on the mortgage during the marriage. Where the property should have depreciated since October 2008 and any paydown on a standard mortgage would be minimal, I doubt that interest is worth anything. Next, alimony or spousal support, absent unusual circumstances, basically runs from the higher earning spouse to the lower earning spouse and the court is guided by the standard of half the length of the marriage. So you have less than a one-year marriage, so that's not the biggest issue either.