Family Law

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Who’s your father for inheritance purposes in California? Family Code section 7540(a) states that “the child of spouses who cohabited at the time of conception and birth is conclusively presumed to be a child of the marriage.” A child covered by this marital presumption is not an heir of a deceased third person even if genetic testing proves a parent-child relationship.

In Estate of Franco (2023) 87 Cal.App.5th 1270, the Court of Appeal clarified that, in order for the marital presumption to be applied, there must be a clear showing of cohabitation (living together) at the time of conception and birth.

If Dad bought a house solely in his name, can Stepmother claim a community property interest after Dad has died? Perhaps yes. The answer lies at tricky intersections of California probate law and family law. While family law governs spouses during their lifetimes and upon divorce, the death of one spouse complicates the picture.  It…

Section 2030 of California’s Family Code provides an important safeguard to ensure the fairness of marriage dissolution proceedings. It allows the Court to order a more financially well-off party to pay some or all of the other party’s attorney fees, beginning as early as the start of the proceedings. Section 2030 was enacted to put…

Jeffrey MakoffOn November 20, 2019, California attorney Jeffrey T. Makoff presented to the Sacramento Estate Planning Council on the topic: “Welcome to the Post-Marriage World: How to Plan for a Generation That Says ‘I Don’t.’”

Jeff started with evidence that marriage rates have declined sharply from the Silent Generation (those born from the mid-1920s to the mid-1940s) to the Millennials (those born from about 1981 to 1996).

California’s elaborate Family Code establishes property rights between married persons, resting on the concept of “community property.”  But what happens when unmarried folks start or run businesses together, or make other financial deals, during an intimate relationship?  Jeff explored the complexities associated with the legal relationship between partners who are neither married nor registered domestic partners.

(Editor’s Note: The Court of Appeal granted rehearing on December 2, 2019 and later depublished the portion of its opinion discussed below such that it is no longer citable authority in California courts.)

It is widely understood in California that inherited assets, unlike assets earned from labor, are the separate property of the receiving spouse.  But what if the assets do not come directly from a parent and instead pass from one sibling to another?

Inheritance for separate property purposes generally means direct inheritance, says the California Court of Appeal.  That’s the lesson of In re Marriage of Deluca (2019) 41 Cal.App.5th 598.

Receiving gifts

(Editor’s Note: The post below was published on November 21, 2016.  California law as to undue influence presumptions between spouses changed on January 1, 2020, due to Assembly Bill 327, discussed in a subsequent post.)

When Wife works with her Sacramento estate planning lawyer to favor her Husband over her children from a prior marriage in her trust, does California law presume that Husband exerted undue influence over the Wife to gain a benefit?  Until 2014, most California trust and estate lawyers would answer that question in the negative.  Favoring a current spouse over other potential beneficiaries is a common and natural choice in estate planning.

Yet a California Court of Appeal based in San Jose took the opposite position in Lintz v. Lintz (2014) 222 Cal.App.4th 1346.  The Lintz case casts a shadow over millions of “honey I love you” wills and trusts in the Golden State.  Until the California Legislature or Supreme Court resolves this question, step-children will invoke Lintz in an effort to gain the upper hand over step-parents.  This post will discuss the inconsistency that Lintz recently has created in California law.