Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Quit Claim Deed Laws

Basically, if you signed the quitclaim deed and he recorded the property is in his name alone. Therefore he can do whatever he wants alone in refinancing if the lender will let him. Since you are his wife I cannot see any commercial lender or even private lender allowing him to do anything without your approval. Before you do any kind of approving I would go over this situation with an attorney to make sure you understand your rights and liabilities and to protect yourself in this situation, whatever it is.i have been practicing law in this speciality for over 30 years in the san francisco bay area and if you wish to consult with me you can contact me at 925-945-6000.

Re: Quit Claim Deed Laws

It is certainly not a law. It is more likely a matter of lender policy. The lender wants to know that the person receiving the loan and putting up the house as collateral is the sole owner. In other words, that the collateral is entirely free of any community-property interest.

Now, here's the interesting part. To the extent your funds, or community funds, have been used to make principal payments (as opposed to the interest portion of payments), you may have acquired some interest in the property and you and/or your marital community may have acquired a partial interest thereby. You might want to locate and read the recent case of Bono v. Clark (2002) 103 Cal.App.4th at page 1409, which discusses this issue.

If you execute a new quitclaim, you are probably giving up a sliver of ownership and resetting the ownership meter back to 100% - 0% where it was six years ago. Your share of the community interest developed over the past six years may be pretty small, because most mortgages are heavy on interest and low on principal in the early years, especially on a 30-year loan, but if you have second thoughts about giving up this partial ownership you should take your mortgage-payment file and go see a family law attorney.