My sister married her husband about 20 years ago. They live in California, a community-property state. He had a home from a prior marriage, and they live there together.
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What — short of divorce — can my sister do to get access to the money that he keeps that she is entitled to?
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California is one of the nine community-property states, along with Arizona, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin. Regardless of the state where your sister and her husband live, whatever a person acquired before marriage is typically treated as separate property. The same goes for property inherited by either spouse, as long as that spouse keeps the property separate. (In an equitable-distribution state, a couple’s assets are divided equitably, if not always equally.)
Ashley Silberfeld, partner at Blank Rome in Los Angeles, says it’s unfortunate that this type of scenario is not unusual in many marriages. If your sister can trace or show that her husband’s earnings were deposited into the “investment pool,” then the community has an interest in that pool by virtue of the community earnings going into the pool. If so, “she has every right to obtain one-half of the community property portion of the pool. If she does not, and her husband does not give her access, there is nothing she can do short of divorce.”
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"‘He and His Family Have an Investment Pool’: How Can My Sister — Short of Divorce — Access Her Penny-Pinching Husband’s Money?" by Quentin Fottrell was published in MarketWatch on August 14, 2024.
