What is Separate and Community Property?

The second step after we identify all the assets is to characterize the assets as separate property or community property.

So all assets that are owned or possessed by either spouse on divorce, are presumed to be community property. It’s important to know what is separate property, because the court cannot divide a spouse’s separate property. The court can only divide the community property.

So if the spouse proves that certain assets are his or her separate property, those assets go off the chart when we are talking about dividing them.

And once they’re proven, the asset is confirmed to be the separate property asset of the spouse that proves that. And oftentimes we can get an agreement that certain assets are separate property.