Community Property

Community Property, in law, possessions held jointly by a married couple. Except for inheritances or gifts to either spouse, all property acquired by the husband or wife during the marriage is usually considered community property. This includes money, real estate, household furnishings, investment securities, cars, and other types of consumer goods that people have accumulated together. Property owned prior to the marriage and any income from such property remains separate and apart. Contractual agreements may also be made by the couple to allow them to maintain individual property.

In the past, marital property laws were biased in favour of the husband, who usually held title to the couple’s major assets. In English common law, wives were originally unable to hold and dispose of property, but a series of 19th-century acts of parliament, culminating in the Married Women’s Property Act 1882, gave wives the right to their own property.

The question of who owns what is one of fact, so it varies from case to case. There are now provisions for the court to exercise wide discretion in adjusting the property ownership between divorcing parties (See Divorce; Maintenance). There are no such provisions in English law for couples who live together, and one partner may have to rely on proving that property in the name of the other partner is really shared between them.