My father passed away and I am inheriting a large amount of money. I am married and live in California and want to know if this will be community property or is it exclusively mine?

Ace High

http://www.kinseylaw.com/clientserv2...greements.html -- has a lot of interesting info -- Ace

excon

Hello ss:

I dunno, but I do have an opinion. Certainly, since it's a large amount of money, you're not going to take an exconvicts word.

Assuming that you had no pre nup, it's community property. What you owned before you entered the marriage is your separate property. What you earned/inherited during the course of the marriage belongs to both of you.

Isn't she lucky?

excon

Dr D

I respectfully disagree. An inheritance is sole and separate property and not community property. It should remain separate as long as those funds are not co-mingled with community assets. I am 99.312% sure of this. (I always leave myself a weasel factor).

Fr_Chuck

yes normally they are not, but since it is large amount, you need to see about various ways to transfer the money to be the less tax penalty.

So for a large amount, hire an attorney,

But is there a reason that you would not want this to be joint property, are you and your spouse having trouble??

samsclub

In Texas inheritance is NOT community property. (I am divorced). I used some of the money to pay off our debts and do things around the house and kept the documentation. I got it back out of the divorce. Inheritance is untouchable to the spouse but you need to keep records of how you spent it to prove it was for the betterment of the family and whatever. Ask a lawyer in your state.