Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

How you take title does not determine whether it is community property, it is whether you use community assets to buy the property.

There are a lot of other factors to consider, other than title. The reason that title is not an absolute when determining whether something is separate property is because of a well known maxim in California that a spouse is not allowed to make a gift of community property to herself or himself. Some of the other factors would be the source of the funds to pay the purchase price, and the source of funds to pay down any mortgage, in addition to how title is held, and the existence or lack of prenuptial agreements, or post nuptial agreements, including what are known as "transmutations."