Inception of Title

The rule that when determining whether a certain piece of property is community or separate, the Court looks for to when a spouse first obtained the right to hold title. This applies to situations such as, for example, a Husband buy a house the day before the marriage and receives the title after marriage. We judge it from the date he received the right to title (the purchase date), not the date he received title. And because that date is before the marriage, it is presumed to be sole and separate property. (If it was acquired by one of the spouses during the marriage, it is presumed to be community property. If it was acquired by one of the spouses before the marriage, it is presumed to be that spouse’s sole and separate.