Legal Question in Family Law in California
Married and live in CA - during marriage, wife received inheritance that she used a good portion of to help buy our house. My wife is now filing for divorce, and we are going to sell the house. Wife thinks she should get more of the proceeds from the sale of the house because of the amount of inheritance money she used to purchase it during marriage.
My thoughts are that since the inheritance was used to purchase a home that is now community property, the proceeds from the sale would also be community property, regardless of whether she used her inheritance to help purchase the house. Any thoughts on this issue would be most appreciated.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Unless she has made a written waiver, she can claim a right to reimbursement for her contribution to the acquisition of community property, to the extent that she can trace the payment to a separate property source pursuant to Family Code section 2640. Her inheritance is her separate property, so it sounds like she has a good claim for reimbursement.
Roach is 100% right on this one. As long as the inheritance was maintained as separate property until put into the down payment, and as long as she did not intentionally waive her 2640 rights, she gets her inheritance back out of the sale proceeds first, and anything left is divided.
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