Legal Question in Family Law in California

The transfers will surely be scrutinized by any attorney to determine if there is a community share of the houses. With that being said, the houses may be entirely your seperate property, but it would still need to be disclosed and analyzed during the litigation process.

For self represented individuals you can consult with the family law facilitator self help center at your local court house.

As always please consult a local attorney prior to taking legal action. Good luck. Also please check out my Santa Clara County Family Lawyer blog.

Law Offices James Chau

181 Devine St.

San Jose, CA. 95110

http://www.jameschaulaw.com/

http://sanjosefamilylawyer.blogspot.com/

You have to be careful with that transfer. It is extremely unusual that a person keeps their real property acquired before marriage completely separate from money earned during the marriage. If any money earned or acquired during the marriage was used to pay for anything to do with the properties, the whole situation is subject to what is called the Moore-Marsden rule.

The bottom line is that you will gain nothing by transferring title to your son. If you actually kept it totally separate, then there is nothing to keep your ex from getting. If you, like most people, have at least some community contribution to the property to account for, you will be liable for it whether you own the property or not. It will just be taken out of your share of community assets, or you will be ordered to pay your ex for whatever his share is.

Lastly, if there is more than $10,000.00 in equity in the property you are setting yourself up for tax liability on the gift.

Once you file for divorce, you will not be able to transfer any assets without court approval. So, if you are going to transfer any assets, the time to do it would be before filing for divorce, not after.

However, such a transfer could be considered a "fraudulent conveyance" and could be potentially undone, especially if your son does not pay value for the transfer. Likewise, as payments and improvements are made on separate property during the marriage, the marriage obtains a community property interest in the property. So, your wife would probably have a right to claim a small ownership interest in the property's equity, depending on how much equity the property gained during the marriage. She probably is not entitled to 50% unless the property had 0 equity before you married her.

On the other hand, if the property has lost value during the marriage, then you might be able to successfully make the argument that she is entitled to $0.00 because the community gained nothing.