Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Form for change of maiden name to married name.

I'm not aware that doing this would serve any useful purpose. California's law has long recognized that people (especially women) change their surnames through marriage. There is a provision in the Civil Code (section 1096) stating that a person who acquired title under one name but later uses another name must, in any conveyance after the name change, set forth the name in which he or she derived title to said real estate. There is also a section in the Code of Civil Procedure (section 1279.6) forbidding anyone to discriminate in trade or business against any other person because that latter person "has chosen to use or regularly uses his or her birth name, former name, or name adopted upon solemnization of marriage or registration of domestic partnership."

Further, I am not aware of any form intended for this specific purpose. This is not to say that none exists. I suppose if you really want to do this, you could quitclaim your interest as follows: "I, Mary Jones, who acquired title to the property described in Exhibit "A" attached hereto as Mary Smith, hereby forever quitclaim all my right, title and interest in said property to myself, Mary Jones." An ordinary quitclaim deed form would work (if carefully filled out, especially as to the legal description of the real property), and by quitclaiming to herself, your wife would not be affecting the extent of her title, whether held as community property, tenancy in common, etc. Note, however, that if the property is held as joint tenants there could be an issue as to whether doing this severs the joint tenancy (leaving you as tenants in common, which is about the same as joint tenancy except that it lacks the right of survivorship).

A much better idea for a couple of your apparent age group (based on home purchase about 25 years ago) would be to do some formal estate planning, probably including placing the home in a living trust, which would result it it being re-titled in the name of the trust, thus accomplishing both the name-change and estate-planning objectives.