Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Your wife would sign and have notarized a quitclaim or grant deed of her interest in the property to you.

If there has been a true legal separation obtained after filing and serving a petition for legal separation with the court, the court's order should contain provisions for dividing the couple's property, including property held in joint tenancy.

However, you probably mean only that the two of you have split without benefit, so far, of any court processes except maybe a restraining order. In that case, your options are somewhat limited, and include:

1. You can convert the joint tenancy (which has a right of survivorship, probably not desirable after a break-up) into a tenancy in common. You'll still be co-owners, but she won't get 100% ownership if she survivies you and you can bequeath your half interest to whom you choose. You can do this by recording a properly made-out deed of your half interest as a joint tenant from yourself to yourself as a tenant in common. This doesn't require her cooperation, permission or knowledge, but she remains on title as a half owner, only she is now a tenant in common and not a joint tenant.

2. If she agrees and signs before a notary, you can obtain her half interest by deed, and become the sole owner..........but why would she do that? Are you prepared to pay her the value of thehalf interest? What if she asked you to deed your half interest to her? Reaching a deal on this will be necessary, and her bargaining position may be as strong as yours.

3. Unhappy co-owners of real estate generally have the right to sue for and obtain what is called "partition"of the co-owned property. In the old days, this was done by a court order splitting the ranch in two, but as this is no longer practical in most situations, partition nowadays is usually done by a court-ordered sale of the property and division of the net proceeds after pay-off of liens and adjustments for excess expenditures made by one co-owner for things like mortgage payments, taxes and insurance. In many partition cases, the mere filing of the suit causes one party to buy out the other to avoid the legal process.