Legal Question in Family Law in California

I was married in New York City about 10 years ago, and my wife and I executed mirror wills shortly thereafter, also in New York. We moved to California a few years ago. We have a plain vanilla estate (only own residence, no investments other than mutual funds and no debt). We have elementary school aged children.

I have 3 questions:

(1) is there any way to "convert" our NY marriage to a CA marriage so that CA law would apply to the marriage (i.e. divorce, inheritance, etc.)

(2) regardless of whether we re-do our wills and marriage, would California law apply to any child issues (custody, support, etc.).

(3) are there any good reasons for us to execute new wills that would allow our estate to be handled in CA rather than NY when we die?

Thanks!


Asked on 2/22/10, 5:18 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

1) By moving to California and residing there for six months or more, you "converted" your marriage already for most purposes. California probate procedure would apply to your wills to, but questions of interpretation of New York wills would require a choice of law research and analysis project based on what the issue of interpretation was.

2) As I said, once you are in California for six months, California Family Law applies to everything. Wills, Estates and Probate would be a bit mixed, but Family Law would be 100% California in all but the most unusual cases.

3) If you die in California with California real property, you will save your heirs and executor a lot of time, trouble and expense if you have California wills. By living and dying in California, your estate would be handed in California anyway. It would just complicate and delay things to have to probate a New York will in California.

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Answered on 2/27/10, 11:13 pm


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