A refinement of the elective share to which a surviving spouse is entitled, whereby the “fair share” is identified as something other than the traditional one-third of the probate estate. • The current version of the Uniform Probate Code uses a sliding scale that increases with each year of marriage. Under the UPC, a surviving […]
common-law state. 1. See NONCODE STATE. 2. Any state that has not adopted a community-property regime. • The chief difference today between a community-property state and a common-law state is that in a common-law state, a spouse’s interest in property held by the other spouse does not vest until (1) a divorce action has been
community-property state. A state in which spouses hold property that is acquired during marriage (other than property acquired by inheritance or individual gift) as community property. See COMMUNITY PROPERTY. Cf. COMMON-LAW STATE E (2). [Cases: Husband and Wife 246–276(9).]
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community estate. In a community-property state, the total of the assets and debts making up a married couple’s property owned in common. Cf. COMMUNITY PROPERTY.
hotchpot (hoch-pot), n. 1. The blending of items of property to secure equality of division, esp. as practiced either in cases of divorce or in cases in which advancements of an intestate’s property must be made up to the estate by a contribution or by an accounting. — Also termed hotchpotch; hotchpot rule. Cf. RAPPORT
Uniform Disposition of Community Property at Death Act. A 1971 model statute designed for non-community-property states to preserve the rights of each spouse in property that was community property before the spouses moved to non-community-property states, unless they have severed or altered their community-property rights.
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A debt or other obligation incurred by either spouse after marriage in a community-property state. • Such an obligation is presumed to be an obligation of the community and not of the individual spouse.
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Personal property that, having been acquired in a non-community-property state, would have been community property if acquired in a community-property state. • If a community-property state is the forum for a divorce or administration of a decedent’s estate, state law may allow the court to treat qua-si-community property as if it were community property when
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equitable distribution. Family law. The division of marital property by a court in a divorce proceeding, under statutory guidelines that provide for a fair, but not necessarily equal, allocation of the property between the spouses. • With equitable distribution, when a marriage ends in divorce, property acquired during the marriage is divided equitably between the
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Family law. In a community-property state, the deliberate hiding or fraudulent transfer of community assets before a divorce or death for the purpose of preventing the other spouse from claiming a half-interest ownership in the property.
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