Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

What rights?

Okay, let's take this from the beginning. First, you probably mean "my name is not on the house title" rather than "not on the house deed" because a deed is a one-time instrument used to transfer title, whereas "title" refers to ownership of real estate as reflected in the county's official records, regardless of how acquired (e.g., inheritance).

Next, "title" as reflected in the county recorder's records often doesn't fully and truly reflect the ownership of real estate held by one spouse. This is because (among other reasons) making payments on a loan with community funds such as the wages or salary of either spouse will give rise to a small community-property ownership interest. For example, if Jack marries Jill, who already owns a house as her separate property, but it has a mortgage on it, when the pay earned by either of them is used to make principal payments, the principal payment thus made gives their marital community (i.e., the two of them) an interest in the house. The first month community funds (i.e., the pay of either of them) are used to pay the mortgage, the community gets a tiny sliver of ownership, and the house no longer belongs solely to Jill.

So, asking a spouse whose name isn't "on title" to sign a quitclaim is rather commonplace when, for example, the spouse whose name is on title wants to refinance. What you'll be doing in signing a quitclaim is transferring your 1/2 of any sliver of community-property interest you may have acquired back to your spouse. Typically, that'll restore your spouse's ownership to exactly 100.0000%, whereas a careful analysis of the principal payments since your marriage might show that, prior to the quitclaim, her interest in "her" property was only maybe 98.8362%.

The effect of making such a quitclaim is relatively insignificant when you're newlywed, but can become fairly significant after five, ten or so years of marriage and making the monthly payment from wages or salaries that would be considered community funds under California community-property law.

Also, the effect of the quitclaim is one-time. After the quitclaim, making future payments from community income will once again begin to create a community-property interest, starting at zero but creeping upward every time a principal payment is made.

However, the one-time aspect of the quitclaim means that it will not affect your right to inherit under your spouse's will, nor under the rules of intestacy, nor under a living trust unless the trust contains some peculiar and specific provision regarding this particular property.