Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
Husband bought lot and got me sign quit claim deed. Is there such thing that if my name will be on the title of house which will be built on that lot , that automatically makes me co owner of house and lot ?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Not necessarily. You signed a quit claim deed. There are a lot of issues to go over, which are too lengthy to list here. You should speak to a competent real estate attorney, familiar with family law issues.
Unless it is a mobile home registered with the Dept. of Motor Vehicles, a house cannot be owned separately from the real property it sits on. So if you are not an owner of record on the lot (which if you signed a quitclaim deed you are not) then you will not be a co-owner of anything built on the lot or any other form of improvement to the lot. If, however, community income or assets are used to improve the lot, including building a house on it, you would acquire what is called a quasi-community property interest in the whole thing, house, lot, etc. What that interest would be, and what the value of it would be, is a rather complicated determination that would require reviewing the entire financial history of the situation.
Quite frankly, a husband requiring his wife to sign a quitclaim deed of real property is always a red flag that he is setting her up for him to take more than his fair share of the community assets in a divorce. There are legitimate reasons for it, such as when he buys property with separate property assets and then wants to take a loan against it, since lenders will require a quitclaim at that point. But at least as often as not, the quitclaim deed is an attempt to cheat the spouse who signs it. It doesn't usually work, but it does make a mess of things and winds up costing a lot of legal fees to sort out in a divorce. If your husband's plans are on the up and up, the two of you should spend a few hundred dollars consulting with a family law attorney who is expert in real estate law, to document your intentions now, so there will be nothing to fight about if a divorce happens. If you think your husband is trying to put community assets in his name only for no good reason, then you need to talk to a family law attorney immediately about protecting your interests.