Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

It is certainly OK to leave your interest to your daughter instead of your partner. However, what interest you own has been muddied. Once you became domestic partners, community property law kicked in. That means that any money earned during the partnership that went into increasing the equity value of the property, created a community property interest in the home. Only earnings during the partnership count, and only payments that increased the value count. So interest on a mortgage, maintenance, property taxes, etc., don't count. But anything paid toward improvements, i.e., anything that could be added to the tax basis for capital gains purposes, counts. So everything from new light fixtures to a kitchen remodel, to a new wing, would all create a community property interest if paid for with earnings during the partnership. Also, any principle pay-down on the mortgage made with earnings during the partnership count. That's going to result in some complex accounting at some point, now or later.

The reason this becomes relevant is that you can only pass by will your separate property share, plus your half of the community property interest, BUT, in the absence of a will, your partner would also get half of YOUR community property share, and your daughter would get the other half. If you want to leave your community property share entirely to your daughter, you need to have a carefully drafted will that contains all the necessary provisions to pass muster for omitting a spouse/partner.

So the bottom line is that you certainly CAN do what you want to do, but you are going to need to have a well qualified attorney guide you through it and draft or at a minimum help you draft the necessary testamentary documents.