Definition of "Community property"

Property owned and held jointly and equally shared by each spouse. It is purchased during their marriage, regardless of the wage-earning situation of either spouse. A spouse may not make a gift of or dispose of community property without valuable consideration and written consent of the other spouse. Also, necessaries such as furniture etc, may not be disposed of without written consent of the other spouse. On a co-owners death, one half belongs to the survivor as separate party. One half goes by will to the descendant devises or by succession to the survivor. Property owned before marriage, and property acquired after marriage by gift, inheritance, or by purchase with separate funds can be exempted from the couples community property. Such property is called separate property and can be conveyed or mortgaged without the signature of the owners spouse.

image of a real estate dictionary page

Have a question or comment?

We're here to help.

*** Your email address will remain confidential.
 

 

Popular Real Estate Terms

The total return from holding a real estate investment for the holding period of time. The computation follows: For a mutual fund investing in a real estate, the return is in the form ...

Arrears is a legal and financial term used to describe payments in regards to their due dates. While the term is more often used to refer to a contractual obligation or liability that was ...

Limit on how much a borrower's payment can increase. ...

The term market segmentation is mostly used in marketing for assembling prospective buyers in groups based on their needs and their response to a marketing action. One definition of market ...

The definition of an open-end lease is what happens when someone rents a property for a monthly rate with the added obligation to make a large final payment when the agreement is over to ...

Ownership in property by two or more persons at the same time. ...

In order to define allotment, we have to take into consideration what it refers to. While generally, it refers to a certain amount of something that is allocated to a particular person, the ...

The term lock-in clause is used in an agreement that prescribes a period of time within which either of the parties that signed a contract cannot terminate the contract. In case one of the ...

Contract containing provisions of the insurance policy specifying who the parties are, what amounts and due dates, deductibles, time period, ceilings, kind of property., location of ...

Popular Real Estate Questions