Legal Question in Family Law in California

Re: property settlement

The land is separate property because it was purchased with your wife's separate property. You mentioned that both of your names were on the loan. Whether or not that loan will be deemed to be community property depends on the collateral that was used to secure the loan. If it was your job, then that was community property. If it was savings, then you have to look at the community versus separate nature of that underlying savings to determine if the loan was separate or community property. It may turn out to be a little of both.

It is important to note, however, that by deeding the property to her alone, you have gifted your wife with your community property share of that house (unless you can show that you did it for a reason other than to convey your community property share to her). If you are concerned about getting your share of the money out of the property should a divorce occur, put your name on that deed as soon as you can.

Re: property settlement

When you bought the land with her s/p money, she was entitled to reimbursement of the s/p money used, under section 2640. If you had left it at that, she would get that amount off the top and the rest would be divided equally.

When you thereafter deeded the improved land to her name alone, you created what we call a transmutation. So now she is entitled to all of the equity or net sales proceeds, subject to whatever you could claim for use of c/p funds to pay down the principle on the mortgage. This is not usually very much.

You can attempt to set the deed aside. That's not easy, but there is some case law to support that request. See In re Marriage of Haines.